Sort and Return Middle Element | Dataford Interview Questions

During a calibration step for the Stryker Mako System, sensor readings must be ordered before evaluating the center of the sample. Given a list of integer readings, return a sorted copy and its median value.

For an odd number of readings, the median is the single middle value. For an even number, calculate the median as the arithmetic mean of the two middle values. Do not modify the original input list.

Formal Specification

Implement sort_and_get_middle(readings). The input is a non-empty list of integers. Return a dictionary with two fields: sorted_readings, containing the readings in ascending order, and middle, containing the median as an integer or floating-point number.

Constraints

1 <= len(readings) <= 10^5
-10^9 <= readings[i] <= 10^9
Duplicate readings are allowed
The input list must remain unchanged

Function Signature

def sort_and_get_middle(readings):

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