Merge two arrays and sort the final one

Question

In an interview I was asked the following question. I am given two arrays, both of them are sorted.

BUT

Array 1 will have few -1\'s and Array 2 will have to

Answer 1

You can try following approach:

Logic

• Create a new array that will be returned.
• Check for first element in arrayTwo and keep it in a variable say val.
• Loop over arrayOne and check if current value is greater than val, push it in array and decrement value of i by 1 to check next value as well with current element.
• Now check for current element. If it is less than 0, ignore it, else push value to array.
• Return this array.

function mergeAndSort(a1, a2) {
  var matchCount = 0;
  var ret = [];

  for (var i = 0; i < a1.length; i++) {
    var val = a2[matchCount];
    if (a1[i] > val) {
      ret.push(val)
      matchCount++
      i--;
      continue;
    }
    if (a1[i] > 0) {
      ret.push(a1[i]);
    }
  }
  console.log(ret.join())
  return ret;
}


var arrayOne = [3, 6, -1, 11, 15, -1, 23, 34, -1, 42]
var arrayTwo = [7, 19, 38];
var arrayThree = [1, 9, 28];
var arrayFour = [1,2,5]

mergeAndSort(arrayOne, arrayTwo)
mergeAndSort(arrayOne, arrayThree)
mergeAndSort(arrayOne, arrayFour)

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Note: Not putting check for number of elements in arrayTwo as its clearly mentioned in question that it will be same.