Merge Three Sorted linked lists
Last updated: December 1, 2025
Quick Overview
Given three sorted strings, merge them into a single sorted result.
NVIDIA
December 1, 2025570
12
3,508 solved
Given three sorted strings, merge them into a single sorted result.
This coding problem is frequently asked during Phone Screen at NVIDIA. The interviewer is testing your ability to translate a problem into clean, working code while discussing time and space complexity. NVIDIA expects candidates to write production-quality code, not just solve the puzzle.
What the Interviewer Expects
- Quickly identify the optimal approach and its theoretical basis
- Handle complex algorithm design with multiple interacting components
- Write concise, elegant code under time pressure
- Prove correctness of your approach and discuss alternative solutions
- Optimize beyond the obvious: discuss constant factor improvements
- Address follow-up variations and explain how the solution generalizes
Key Topics to Cover
How to Approach This
- Clarify input constraints and edge cases before writing code.
- Walk through your approach verbally and confirm with the interviewer before coding.
- Start with a brute force solution, then optimize. Mention time and space complexity.
- Test your solution with examples, including edge cases like empty input or duplicates.
- Consider common patterns: sliding window, two pointers, hash map, BFS/DFS, dynamic programming.
Possible Follow-up Questions
- What is the worst-case input for your solution?
- What happens if the input contains duplicates?
- Can you solve this in a single pass?
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Practice DSA ProblemsSample Answer
Problem Analysis
To merge three sorted strings into a single sorted result, we can apply the two pointers technique. This method is particularly suitable here because each string is already sorted, allowing us to ...
Approach
- Initialize Pointers: Start with three pointers, one for each string, initialized to the start of each string.
- Compare Characters: Compare the current characters pointed to by each pointe...
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