How to use Merge Sort with TypeScript ?

Merge sort follows the divide and conquer approach, which means it breaks the problem into smaller sub-problems, solves each sub-problem, and then combines the solutions to solve the original problem.

How does merge sort work?

Begin with a Recursive Divide and Conquer Approach:

• Start with a recursive function called mergeSort() that takes an array as input.
• Within this function, check if the array length is 0 or 1. If so, return the array as it is already sorted.
• Otherwise, find the middle index of the array and divide it into two halves.

Call mergeSort Recursively:

• Call mergeSort() recursively on the left and right halves of the array to sort them individually.

Define the Merge Function:

• Define a function named merge that takes two sorted arrays (left and right) as input.
• Initialize an empty array called result to store the merged result.
• Initialize variables leftIndex and rightIndex to track the indices of the left and right arrays, respectively.

Merge the Subarrays:

• Iterate through both arrays simultaneously until one of them is fully traversed.
• Compare elements at the current indices of the left and right arrays.
• If the element in the left array is smaller, push it to the result array and move to the next element in the left array.
• If the element in the right array is smaller, push it to the result array and move to the next element in the right array.

Concatenate Remaining Elements:

• After one of the arrays is fully traversed, concatenate the remaining elements of the other array to the result array.

Return the Merged Result:

• Return the merged result array.

Approach:

• Create a recursive function named mergeSort() to divide the passed array into two parts and recursively do the same thing by calling itself again and again until the length of array becomes 0 or 1.
• Define another function named merge() to merge the sorted sub parts of the array and store them in a single sorted array.
• The merge function will merge the arrays in such a way that the smaller elements will be pushed first and larger at last.
• This process will repeat itself untile the whole array gets sorted and merged.

Example: The below code example is a practical implementation of the merge sort in TypeScript.

function mergeSort(array: any[]): any[] {
    if (array.length <= 1) {
        return array;
    }
    const middle = Math.floor(array.length / 2);
    const leftHalf = array.slice(0, middle);
    const rightHalf = array.slice(middle);
    return merge(mergeSort(leftHalf), mergeSort(rightHalf));
}

function merge(left: any[], right: any[]): any[] {
    let result: any[] = [];
    let leftIndex = 0;
    let rightIndex = 0;

    while (leftIndex < left.length &&
        rightIndex < right.length) {
        if (left[leftIndex] < right[rightIndex]) {
            result.push(left[leftIndex]);
            leftIndex++;
        } else {
            result.push(right[rightIndex]);
            rightIndex++;
        }
    }

    return result.concat(left.slice(leftIndex)).
        concat(right.slice(rightIndex));
}

const sortedNumberArray: number[] =
    mergeSort([38, 27, 43, 10]);
const sortedStringArray: string[] =
    mergeSort(['JavaScript', 'GeeksforGeeks', 'TypeScript']);
console.log(sortedNumberArray);
console.log(sortedStringArray);