Array Sorting in Ascending Order | Dataford Interview Questions

A Nomura analytics component receives an array of integer order values that must be presented in ascending order. Implement a stable sorting algorithm without calling Python's built-in sort() or sorted() functions.

Return a new array containing the values in nondecreasing order. The input array must not be modified. Equal values may appear multiple times, and their relative order would need to be preserved if the values represented records with equal sort keys.

Formal Specification

Implement sort_values(nums), where nums is a list of integers. Return a new list containing exactly the same values arranged from smallest to largest.

Use an algorithm with O(n log n) worst-case time complexity. The expected solution should use divide and conquer and may use additional linear auxiliary space.

Constraints

0 <= nums.length <= 10^5
-10^9 <= nums[i] <= 10^9
Do not call sort() or sorted().
The input list must remain unchanged.

Function Signature

def sort_values(nums):

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