Divide-and-Conquer Technique:

Merge Sort

Dr. Md. Abul Kashem Mia, Professor, CSE Dept, BUET

 Divide-and-Conquer
 Divide-and-Conquer is a general
algorithm design paradigm:
 Divide the problem into a number of

subproblems that are smaller

instances of the same problem
 Conquer the subproblems by solving

them recursively
 Combine the solutions to the

subproblems into the solution for the

original problem
 The base case for the recursion are
subproblems of constant size
 Analysis can be done using recurrence
equations

Dr. Md. Abul Kashem Mia, Professor, CSE Dept, BUET

 Merge Sort and Quick Sort

Two well-known sorting algorithms adopt this divide-and-

conquer strategy

 Merge sort
 Divide step is trivial – just split the list into two equal parts
 Work is carried out in the conquer step by merging two

sorted lists

Dr. Md. Abul Kashem Mia, Professor, CSE Dept, BUET

Merge Sort: Algorithm

Dr. Md. Abul Kashem Mia, Professor, CSE Dept, BUET

Merge Sort: Algorithm

Dr. Md. Abul Kashem Mia, Professor, CSE Dept, BUET

Merge Sort: Example

Dr. Md. Abul Kashem Mia, Professor, CSE Dept, BUET

 Execution Example

Partition
7 2 9 43 8 6 1  1 2 3 4 6 7 8 9

7 2 9 4  2 4 7 9 3 8 6 1  1 3 8 6

7 2  2 7 9 4  4 9 3 8  3 8 6 1  1 6

77 22 99 44 33 88 66 11

Merge Sort 7
 Execution Example

Recursive call, partition

7 2 9 43 8 6 1  1 2 3 4 6 7 8 9

7 29 4 2 4 7 9 3 8 6 1  1 3 8 6

7 2  2 7 9 4  4 9 3 8  3 8 6 1  1 6

77 22 99 44 33 88 66 11

Merge Sort 8
 Execution Example

Recursive call, partition

7 2 9 43 8 6 1  1 2 3 4 6 7 8 9

7 29 4 2 4 7 9 3 8 6 1  1 3 8 6

722 7 9 4  4 9 3 8  3 8 6 1  1 6

77 22 99 44 33 88 66 11

Merge Sort 9
 Execution Example

Recursive call, base case

7 2 9 43 8 6 1  1 2 3 4 6 7 8 9

7 29 4 2 4 7 9 3 8 6 1  1 3 8 6

722 7 9 4  4 9 3 8  3 8 6 1  1 6

77 22 99 44 33 88 66 11

Merge Sort 10
 Execution Example

Recursive call, base case

7 2 9 43 8 6 1  1 2 3 4 6 7 8 9

7 29 4 2 4 7 9 3 8 6 1  1 3 8 6

722 7 9 4  4 9 3 8  3 8 6 1  1 6

77 22 99 44 33 88 66 11

Merge Sort 11
 Execution Example

Merge
7 2 9 43 8 6 1  1 2 3 4 6 7 8 9

7 29 4 2 4 7 9 3 8 6 1  1 3 8 6

722 7 9 4  4 9 3 8  3 8 6 1  1 6

77 22 99 44 33 88 66 11

Merge Sort 12
 Execution Example

Recursive call, …, base case, merge

7 2 9 43 8 6 1  1 2 3 4 6 7 8 9

7 29 4 2 4 7 9 3 8 6 1  1 3 8 6

722 7 9 4  4 9 3 8  3 8 6 1  1 6

77 22 99 44 33 88 66 11

Merge Sort 13
 Execution Example

Merge
7 2 9 43 8 6 1  1 2 3 4 6 7 8 9

7 29 4 2 4 7 9 3 8 6 1  1 3 8 6

722 7 9 4  4 9 3 8  3 8 6 1  1 6

77 22 99 44 33 88 66 11

Merge Sort 14
 Execution Example

Recursive call, …, merge, merge

7 2 9 43 8 6 1  1 2 3 4 6 7 8 9

7 29 4 2 4 7 9 3 8 6 1  1 3 6 8

722 7 9 4  4 9 3 8  3 8 6 1  1 6

77 22 99 44 33 88 66 11

Merge Sort 15
 Execution Example

Merge
7 2 9 43 8 6 1  1 2 3 4 6 7 8 9

7 29 4 2 4 7 9 3 8 6 1  1 3 6 8

722 7 9 4  4 9 3 8  3 8 6 1  1 6

77 22 99 44 33 88 66 11

Merge Sort 16
 Merge Sort: Running Time

The recurrence for the worst-case running time T(n) is

T(n) = (1) if n = 1
2T(n/2) + (n) if n > 1

equivalently

T(n) = b if n = 1
2T(n/2) + bn if n > 1

Solve this recurrence by

(1) iteratively expansion
(2) using the recursion tree

Dr. Md. Abul Kashem Mia, Professor, CSE Dept, BUET

Cormen 2.3.2: Analyzing divide-and-conquer algorithms

Dr. Md. Abul Kashem Mia, Professor, CSE Dept, BUET

Cormen 2.3.2: Analyzing divide-and-conquer algorithms

Dr. Md. Abul Kashem Mia, Professor, CSE Dept, BUET

 Merge Sort: Running Time (Iterative Expansion)

Note that base, T(n) =b, case occurs when 2i = n.

That is, i = log n.
So,

Thus, T(n) is O(n log n).

Dr. Md. Abul Kashem Mia, Professor, CSE Dept, BUET
 Merge Sort: Running Time (Recursion Tree)

 Draw the recursion tree for the recurrence relation and look for a
pattern:

time
depth T’s size
0 1 n bn

1 2 n/2 bn

i 2i n/2i bn

… … … …

Total time = bn + bn log n

(last level plus all previous levels)

Dr. Md. Abul Kashem Mia, Professor, CSE Dept, BUET

(a)

(b)

(c)  
Cormen: Figure 2.5 How to construct a recursion tree for the recurrence
. Part (a) shows , which progressively expands in (b)–(d) to form the
recursion tree. The fully expanded tree in part (d) has levels (i.e., it has
height , as indicated), and each level contributes a total cost of . The total
cost, therefore, is , which is,

Dr. Md. Abul Kashem Mia, Professor, CSE Dept, BUET

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Dr. Md. Abul Kashem Mia, Professor, CSE Dept, BUET