1768. Merge Strings Alternately

Topics: #twopointers #string #easy

Problem Statement

You are given two strings word1 and word2. Merge the strings by adding letters in alternating order, starting with word1. If a string is longer than the other, append the additional letters onto the end of the merged string.

Return the merged string.

Input: word1 = "abc", word2 = "pqr"
Output: "apbqcr"
Explanation: The merged string will be merged as so:
word1:  a   b   c
word2:    p   q   r
merged: a p b q c r

My Approach

def mergeAlternately(word1: str, word2: str) -> str:
    emptyString = ""
    i = 0
    j = 0
    while(i<len(word1) and j<len(word2)):
        emptyString += word1[i]
        emptyString += word2[j]
        i += 1
        j += 1
    if len(word1)>len(word2):
        for k in range(i, len(word1)):
            emptyString += word1[k]
    else:
        for l in range(j, len(word2)):
            emptyString += word2[l]
    return emptyString

I used a while loop which appended the letters alternately in a new string emptyString. Afterwards, I checked for the longer string and if any letters were left over, appended them to emptyString and returned it.

Personal Thoughts

This problem wasn't that hard but my solution wasn't the best as well. I couldv'e utilized python's inbuilt slicing methods to get rid of an extra loop and many more optimization strategies but well if it ain't broke, dont fix it.