scheme Implementation of different sortings algorithms Merge Sort

Example

Merge Sort is a common sorting algorithm with an average case complexity of O(n log n) and a worst case complexity of O(n log n). Although it cannot be executed in-place, it guarantees O(n log n) complexity in all cases.

Merge Sort repeatedly splits the input in two, until an empty list or single-element list is reached. Having reached the bottom of the splitting tree, it then works its way back up, merging the two sorted splits into each other, until a single sorted list is left.

Using this, a Scheme implementation of Merge Sort may look like the following:

;; Merge two sorted lists into a single sorted list
(define (merge list1 list2)
  (cond
    ((null? list1)
     list2)
    ((null? list2)
     list1)
    (else
      (let ((head1 (car list1))
            (head2 (car list2)))
        ; Add the smaller element to the front of the merge list
        (if (<= head1 head2)
          (cons
            head1
            ; Recursively merge
            (merge (cdr list1) list2))
          (cons
            head2
            ; Recursively merge
            (merge list1 (cdr list2))))))))

(define (split-list lst)
  (let ((half (quotient (length lst) 2)))
    ; Create a pair of the first and second halves of the list
    (cons
      (take lst half)
      (drop lst half))))

(define (merge-sort lst)
  (cond
    ((or (null? lst) ; empty list is sorted, so merge up
         (null? (cdr lst))) ; single-element list is sorted, so merge up
     lst)
    (else
      (let ((halves (split-list lst)))
        ; Recursively split until the bottom, then merge back up to sort
        (merge (merge-sort (car halves))
               (merge-sort (cdr halves)))))))