Most efficient algorithm for merging sorted IEnumerable<T>
- by franck
Hello,
I have several huge sorted enumerable sequences that I want to merge. Theses lists are manipulated as IEnumerable but are already sorted. Since input lists are sorted, it should be possible to merge them in one trip, without re-sorting anything.
I would like to keep the defered execution behavior.
I tried to write a naive algorithm which do that (see below). However, it looks pretty ugly and I'm sure it can be optimized. It may exist a more academical algorithm...
IEnumerable<T> MergeOrderedLists<T, TOrder>(IEnumerable<IEnumerable<T>> orderedlists,
Func<T, TOrder> orderBy)
{
var enumerators = orderedlists.ToDictionary(l => l.GetEnumerator(), l => default(T));
IEnumerator<T> tag = null;
var firstRun = true;
while (true)
{
var toRemove = new List<IEnumerator<T>>();
var toAdd = new List<KeyValuePair<IEnumerator<T>, T>>();
foreach (var pair in enumerators.Where(pair => firstRun || tag == pair.Key))
{
if (pair.Key.MoveNext())
toAdd.Add(pair);
else
toRemove.Add(pair.Key);
}
foreach (var enumerator in toRemove)
enumerators.Remove(enumerator);
foreach (var pair in toAdd)
enumerators[pair.Key] = pair.Key.Current;
if (enumerators.Count == 0)
yield break;
var min = enumerators.OrderBy(t => orderBy(t.Value)).FirstOrDefault();
tag = min.Key;
yield return min.Value;
firstRun = false;
}
}
The method can be used like that:
// Person lists are already sorted by age
MergeOrderedLists(orderedList, p => p.Age);
assuming the following Person class exists somewhere:
public class Person
{
public int Age { get; set; }
}
Duplicates should be conserved, we don't care about their order in the new sequence. Do you see any obvious optimization I could use?
