and this condition happens when we don 't have any  elements in the first half  from b[] so we returning the  last element in a[] from the  first half.
if ( j == 0 ) return a [ i - 1 ] ; else return maximum ( a [ i - 1 ] , b [ j - 1 ] ) ; } } Console . Write ( " ERROR ! ! ! ▁ " + " returning STRNEWLINE " ) ; return 0 ; }