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# merge(+List1, +List2, -List3)

Succeeds if List3 is a merged list of List1 and List2. If both lists are sorted, List3 will be sorted.

List1
  List.
List2
  List.
List3
  List or variable.

## Description

Used to merge the sorted lists List1 and List2 to give the sorted list List3. merge(L1,L2,L3) is equivalent to merge(0,=<,L1,L2,L3).

For two lists [e1,e2,e3] and [f1,f2,f3], e1 is compared to f1. The lower (dictated by the standard ordering below) is put into List3, and the process continued with the remaining input lists. This process continues until both lists are exhausted.

In particular, this will merge two sorted lists into a sorted list.

The sort is done according to the standard ordering of terms. Duplicates are not removed. See compare/3 for this standard ordering. Note in particular that numbers are first ordered by their type (integer, float, etc) and only then by their magnitude, i.e. sorting numbers of different types may not give the expected result.

merge(A, B, M) is equivalent to merge(0, =<, A, B, M).

### Modes and Determinism

- merge(+, +, -) is det

## Examples

    Success:
          merge([2,4,6],[1,3,5],L).
                                (gives L=[1,2,3,4,5,6]).
          merge([f(1),f(7)],[f(8),f(10)],L).
                              (gives L=[f(1),f(7),f(8),f(10)]).
          merge([f(5),f(8)],[f(1),f(2),f(2),f(5),f(8)],L).
                (gives L=[f(1),f(2),f(2),f(5),f(5),f(8),f(8)]).
          merge([a,w],[a,b,b,r,w],L).
                (gives L=[a,a,b,b,r,w,w]).
          merge([f(2),f(1)],[f(3),f(8)],L).
                (gives L=[f(2),f(1),f(3),f(8)]).

    Fail:
          merge([2,4,6],[1,3,5],[1,2,3,4,5]).

## See Also

compare / 3, merge / 5, msort / 2, number_merge / 3