Merging Sorted Arrays | Dataford Interview Questions

Merge 2 sorted arrays without using any extra space (O(1) space). Asked in the SP-L1 upgrade interview stage.

Write a function that merges two sorted arrays in place so that the final combined order is sorted. Assume the first array has enough trailing capacity to hold all elements from the second array.

Function contract

merge_sorted_arrays(nums1, m, nums2, n)

nums1: list of length m + n, where the first m elements are sorted and the remaining slots are placeholders
m: number of valid elements in nums1
nums2: sorted list of length n
n: number of valid elements in nums2
Return nums1 after merging

Constraints

0 <= m, n <= 10^5
m + n == len(nums1)
len(nums2) == n
Both arrays are sorted in nondecreasing order

Function Signature

def merge_sorted_arrays(nums1, m, nums2, n):

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