Welcome to this concise guide on Merge Sort, an efficient algorithm used for sorting arrays or lists. Whether you're new to programming or have been coding for a while, this tutorial will help you understand how Merge Sort works and implement it in Python. What is Merge Sort? Merge Sort is a classic divide-and-conquer algorithm that sorts a list by dividing it into smaller sublists, sorting those, and then merging them back together. It's particularly efficient with large datasets due to its consistent performance across different types of data. Key Characteristics: Divide and Conquer: The list is divided into halves until each sublist contains only one element. Merge Process: Sublists are merged in a sorted manner, resulting in a fully sorted list. Python Implementation Below is the implementation of Merge Sort in Python. Each step is well-commented to help you follow along: def merge_sort(arr): # Base case: if the array has 0 or 1 element, it's already sor...
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