How to Efficiently Merge Two Sorted Arrays in Python Without Using Extra Space?
I can't seem to get I'm stuck on something that should probably be simple... I'm trying to merge two sorted arrays in Python and keep the memory usage to a minimum. My current implementation of merging two arrays is using the built-in `list` methods, but I've noticed that it creates a lot of overhead in terms of memory allocation. Here's what I have: ```python arr1 = [1, 3, 5, 7] arr2 = [2, 4, 6, 8] merged_array = sorted(arr1 + arr2) ``` This works fine, but it uses more memory than I'd like since it creates a new list with `arr1 + arr2`. I'm also concerned about performance as the arrays get larger. I came across the idea of using a two-pointer technique, but I'm not sure how to implement it effectively without using extra space. Here's what I tried: ```python def merge_sorted_arrays(arr1, arr2): i, j, merged = 0, 0, [] while i < len(arr1) and j < len(arr2): if arr1[i] < arr2[j]: merged.append(arr1[i]) i += 1 else: merged.append(arr2[j]) j += 1 merged.extend(arr1[i:]) merged.extend(arr2[j:]) return merged ``` While this does produce the correct output, I still end up creating a new list `merged` in the process. Given that both input arrays are sorted, is there a way to merge them in-place, or can I do this without significantly increasing space complexity? I'm working with Python 3.9, and I would appreciate any suggestions or best practices for handling this kind of merge operation efficiently. For context: I'm using Python on macOS. How would you solve this? This is for a CLI tool running on CentOS.