1768. Merge Strings Alternately

📝 Problem Details

• Title: 1768. Merge Strings Alternately
• Link: https://leetcode.com/problems/merge-strings-alternately/
• Difficulty: Easy
• Tags/Categories: Strings Two-Pointers

input strings word1 and word2 merge the strings by adding letters in alternating order, starting with word1

💭What Were My Initial Thoughts?

- two pointers approach:
	- i to iterate through word1
	- j to iterate through word2

💡 Explanation of Solution

same as intuition:
- use if statements inside the while loop to ensure that the i and j pointers are in bounds before pushing them to result

⌛ Complexity Analysis

Time Complexity: O(n + m)
Space Complexity: O(n + m) for result storage

💻 Implementation of Solution

class Solution {
public:
    string mergeAlternately(string word1, string word2) {
        int m = word1.size();
        int n = word2.size();
        int i = 0, j = 0;
        string result = "";
 
        while(i < m || j < n) {
            if(i < m) result.push_back(word1[i++]);
            if(j < n) result.push_back(word2[j++]);
        }
        return result;
    }
};