HOMEWORK $-$SORT AND MERGE

Write a program that performs the following tasks:

$$ Display a friendly greeting to the user

$$ Prompt the user for a file name $($a list of numbers to be sorted$)$

$$ Accept that file name

$$ Prompt the user for a second file name $($another list of numbers to be sorted$)$

$$ Accept that file name

$$ Open and read the data in the first file

$$ Sort that data using an algorithm that you wrote yourself $($not Array.sort$)$

o The lists will be sufficiently large that a $$simple$$ algorithm won$$t suffice

$$ Open and read the data in the second file

$$ Sort that data, again using your own algorithm

$$ Merge the two sorted arrays into a single sorted array $($see Problem $7-31)$ using a linear

algorithm that makes only one pass through the arrays.

$$ Prompt the user for a file name

$$ Create that file and dump the merged list to the file, using the format specified

The program should check the command line for the parameters.

If three command$-$line parameters are given, accept them; otherwise, prompt for all three.

The file format is as follows: a single integer, followed by that number of integers.

That way you can open the file, read the first value, create an array of the appropriate size, and

then read the rest of the file to populate the array. For example

$10$

$123456789101112131415$

is data in the specified format. The first $10$ is the count, not a data item.

Note that there can be more data items than indicated by the count; ignore the extras.

This assignment began, back in the day, as just the $$merge$$ problem from the textbook.

It has evolved into natural merge sort, with the last merge as a separate step.

The $$natural merge$$ algorithm will satisfy the $$merge$$ portion of this assignment.

It is highly recommended that you write the full $$natural merge$$ sort for the sorting algorithm.

The $$split$$ and $$merge$$ algorithms are tested on Moodle, so you will have both pieces.

DELIVERABLES:

Your Java source code.

A screen shot of your program in action, using input files of your own making, but each with a

size of at least $500,000$ integers. Make sure your $$displayArray$$ function handles large files

correctly $($first $/$ last $100$ entries only$).$ DO NOT SUBMIT THE ACTUAL DATA FILES.

Text files with half a million integers will cause the Moodle previewer to die a horrible death.