I am trying to understand the "Sieve of Eratosthenes". Here is my algorithm (code below), and a list of features that I cannot understand (in order).
Why is i * i more efficient than i * 2? Yes, I can understand it would be less iterations, therefore more efficient, but then doesn't it skip some numbers (for example i = 9 => j = 81 skips 18 27 36 ...)?
On Wikipedia I found that space complexity is equal to O(n) and that's understandable; whatever number we enter it creates an array of the size entered, but time complexity here is where things get confusing. I found this notation O(n(logn)(loglogn)) -- what is that? According to my understanding we have 2 full iterations and 1 partial iteration, therefore O(n^2 * logn).
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
int main() {
cout << "Enter number:" << endl;
int arrSize;
cin >> arrSize;
bool primesArr[arrSize];
primesArr[0] = false;
for (int i = 1; i < arrSize; i++) primesArr[i] = true;
for (int i = 2; i < arrSize; i++)
if (primesArr[i - 1]) {
cout << i << endl;
/* for (int j = i * 2; j < arrSize; j += i) less efficient */
for (int j = i * i; j < arrSize; j += i)
primesArr[j - 1] = false;
}
return 0;
}
Why i * i more efficient than i * 2? Yes, I can understand it would be less iteration, therefore more efficiency, but then doesn't it skip some numbers (for example i = 9 => j = 81 skip 18 27 36 ...)?
You are referring to
for (int j = i * i; j < arrSize; j += i)
Note that i * i is the initial value for the loop counter j. So the values of j greater than i * i will all be marked off. The values which we skip from i * 2 to i * i have already been marked off during previous iterations. Let's think about the first few:
When i == 2, we mark off all multiples of 2 (2, 4, 6, 8, etc.). When i == 3, if we start j = 3 * 2 = 6 then we will mark off 6 again before reaching 9, 12, 15, etc. Since 6 is a multiple of 2 and was already marked off, we can skip straight to 3 * 3 == 9.
When we reach i == 5 and if we start at j == 5 * 2 == 10, then we will mark off 10, which was already taken care of since it is a multiple of 2, 15 which is a multiple of 3, and 20 which is also a multiple of 2 before we finally reach 25 which is not a multiple of any primer less than 5.
time complexity here is where things get confusing. I found this notation O(n(logn)(loglogn)) -- what is that? According to my understanding we have 2 full iterations and 1 partial iteration, therefore O(n^2 * logn).
Your analysis reaches correct result that this algorithm is O(n^2 * logn). A more detailed analysis can prove a tighter upper bound as O(n(logn)(loglogn)). Note that O(n(logn)(loglogn)) is a subset of O(n^2 * logn).
Why i * i more efficient than i * 2? Doesn't it skip some numbers?
No it doesn't because smaller multiple of i (For example 18, 27 etc in your case are covered while running loop for i = 2, i = 3 etc)
Every number can be represented as unique prime factorization. If i is a prime number, any multiple of i greater than i and smaller than i * i would be multiple of one or more primes smaller than i.
nasty notation O(n(logn)(loglogn))
From this answer
Number of operations are 1/2 + 1/3 + 1/5 + 1/7 ... = n log log n
If you count bit operations, since you're dealing with numbers up to n, they have about log n bits, which is where the factor of log n comes in, giving O(n log n log log n) bit operations.
Related
Please when answering this question try to be as general as possible to help the wider community, rather than just specifically helping my issue (although helping my issue would be great too ;) )
I seem to be encountering this problem time and time again with the simple problems on Project Euler. Most commonly are the problems that require a computation of the prime numbers - these without fail always fail to terminate for numbers greater than about 60,000.
My most recent issue is with Problem 12:
The sequence of triangle numbers is generated by adding the natural numbers. So the 7th triangle number would be 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 = 28. The first ten terms would be:
1, 3, 6, 10, 15, 21, 28, 36, 45, 55, ...
Let us list the factors of the first seven triangle numbers:
1: 1
3: 1,3
6: 1,2,3,6
10: 1,2,5,10
15: 1,3,5,15
21: 1,3,7,21
28: 1,2,4,7,14,28
We can see that 28 is the first triangle number to have over five divisors.
What is the value of the first triangle number to have over five hundred divisors?
Here is my code:
#include <iostream>
#include <vector>
#include <cmath>
using namespace std;
int main() {
int numberOfDivisors = 500;
//I begin by looping from 1, with 1 being the 1st triangular number, 2 being the second, and so on.
for (long long int i = 1;; i++) {
long long int triangularNumber = (pow(i, 2) + i)/2
//Once I have the i-th triangular, I loop from 1 to itself, and add 1 to count each time I encounter a divisor, giving the total number of divisors for each triangular.
int count = 0;
for (long long int j = 1; j <= triangularNumber; j++) {
if (triangularNumber%j == 0) {
count++;
}
}
//If the number of divisors is 500, print out the triangular and break the code.
if (count == numberOfDivisors) {
cout << triangularNumber << endl;
break;
}
}
}
This code gives the correct answers for smaller numbers, and then either fails to terminate or takes an age to do so!
So firstly, what can I do with this specific problem to make my code more efficient?
Secondly, what are some general tips both for myself and other new C++ users for making code more efficient? (I.e. applying what we learn here in the future.)
Thanks!
The key problem is that your end condition is bad. You are supposed to stop when count > 500, but you look for an exact match of count == 500, therefore you are likely to blow past the correct answer without detecting it, and keep going ... maybe forever.
If you fix that, you can post it to code review. They might say something like this:
Break it down into separate functions for finding the next triangle number, and counting the factors of some number.
When you find the next triangle number, you execute pow. I perform a single addition.
For counting the number of factors in a number, a google search might help. (e.g. http://www.cut-the-knot.org/blue/NumberOfFactors.shtml ) You can build a list of prime numbers as you go, and use that to quickly find a prime factorization, from which you can compute the number of factors without actually counting them. When the numbers get big, that loop gets big.
Tldr: 76576500.
About your Euler problem, some math:
Preliminary 1:
Let's call the n-th triangle number T(n).
T(n) = 1 + 2 + 3 + ... + n = (n^2 + n)/2 (sometimes attributed to Gauss, sometimes someone else). It's not hard to figure it out:
1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10 =
(1+10) + (2+9) + (3+8) + (4+7) + (5+6) =
11 + 11 + 11 + 11 + 11 =
55 =
110 / 2 =
(10*10 + 10)/2
Because of its definition, it's trivial that T(n) + n + 1 = T(n+1), and that with a<b, T(a)<T(b) is true too.
Preliminary 2:
Let's call the divisor count D. D(1)=1, D(4)=3 (because 1 2 4).
For a n with c non-repeating prime factors (not just any divisors, but prime factors, eg. n = 42 = 2 * 3 * 7 has c = 3), D(n) is c^2: For each factor, there are two possibilites (use it or not). The 9 possibile divisors for the examples are: 1, 2, 3, 7, 6 (2*3), 14 (2*7), 21 (3*7), 42 (2*3*7).
More generally with repeating, the solution for D(n) is multiplying (Power+1) together. Example 126 = 2^1 * 3^2 * 7^1: Because it has two 3, the question is no "use 3 or not", but "use it 1 time, 2 times or not" (if one time, the "first" or "second" 3 doesn't change the result). With the powers 1 2 1, D(126) is 2*3*2=12.
Preliminary 3:
A number n and n+1 can't have any common prime factor x other than 1 (technically, 1 isn't a prime, but whatever). Because if both n/x and (n+1)/x are natural numbers, (n+1)/x - n/x has to be too, but that is 1/x.
Back to Gauss: If we know the prime factors for a certain n and n+1 (needed to calculate D(n) and D(n+1)), calculating D(T(n)) is easy. T(N) = (n^2 + n) / 2 = n * (n+1) / 2. As n and n+1 don't have common prime factors, just throwing together all factors and removing one 2 because of the "/2" is enough. Example: n is 7, factors 7 = 7^1, and n+1 = 8 = 2^3. Together it's 2^3 * 7^1, removing one 2 is 2^2 * 7^1. Powers are 2 1, D(T(7)) = 3*2 = 6. To check, T(7) = 28 = 2^2 * 7^1, the 6 possible divisors are 1 2 4 7 14 28.
What the program could do now: Loop through all n from 1 to something, always factorize n and n+1, use this to get the divisor count of the n-th triangle number, and check if it is >500.
There's just the tiny problem that there are no efficient algorithms for prime factorization. But for somewhat small numbers, todays computers are still fast enough, and keeping all found factorizations from 1 to n helps too for finding the next one (for n+1). Potential problem 2 are too large numbers for longlong, but again, this is no problem here (as can be found out with trying).
With the described process and the program below, I got
the 12375th triangle number is 76576500 and has 576 divisors
#include <iostream>
#include <vector>
#include <cstdint>
using namespace std;
const int limit = 500;
vector<uint64_t> knownPrimes; //2 3 5 7...
//eg. [14] is 1 0 0 1 ... because 14 = 2^1 * 3^0 * 5^0 * 7^1
vector<vector<uint32_t>> knownFactorizations;
void init()
{
knownPrimes.push_back(2);
knownFactorizations.push_back(vector<uint32_t>(1, 0)); //factors for 0 (dummy)
knownFactorizations.push_back(vector<uint32_t>(1, 0)); //factors for 1 (dummy)
knownFactorizations.push_back(vector<uint32_t>(1, 1)); //factors for 2
}
void addAnotherFactorization()
{
uint64_t number = knownFactorizations.size();
size_t len = knownPrimes.size();
for(size_t i = 0; i < len; i++)
{
if(!(number % knownPrimes[i]))
{
//dividing with a prime gets a already factorized number
knownFactorizations.push_back(knownFactorizations[number / knownPrimes[i]]);
knownFactorizations[number][i]++;
return;
}
}
//if this failed, number is a newly found prime
//because a) it has no known prime factors, so it must have others
//and b) if it is not a prime itself, then it's factors should've been
//found already (because they are smaller than the number itself)
knownPrimes.push_back(number);
len = knownFactorizations.size();
for(size_t s = 0; s < len; s++)
{
knownFactorizations[s].push_back(0);
}
knownFactorizations.push_back(knownFactorizations[0]);
knownFactorizations[number][knownPrimes.size() - 1]++;
}
uint64_t calculateDivisorCountOfN(uint64_t number)
{
//factors for number must be known
uint64_t res = 1;
size_t len = knownFactorizations[number].size();
for(size_t s = 0; s < len; s++)
{
if(knownFactorizations[number][s])
{
res *= (knownFactorizations[number][s] + 1);
}
}
return res;
}
uint64_t calculateDivisorCountOfTN(uint64_t number)
{
//factors for number and number+1 must be known
uint64_t res = 1;
size_t len = knownFactorizations[number].size();
vector<uint32_t> tmp(len, 0);
size_t s;
for(s = 0; s < len; s++)
{
tmp[s] = knownFactorizations[number][s]
+ knownFactorizations[number+1][s];
}
//remove /2
tmp[0]--;
for(s = 0; s < len; s++)
{
if(tmp[s])
{
res *= (tmp[s] + 1);
}
}
return res;
}
int main()
{
init();
uint64_t number = knownFactorizations.size() - 2;
uint64_t DTn = 0;
while(DTn <= limit)
{
number++;
addAnotherFactorization();
DTn = calculateDivisorCountOfTN(number);
}
uint64_t tn;
if(number % 2) tn = ((number+1)/2)*number;
else tn = (number/2)*(number+1);
cout << "the " << number << "th triangle number is "
<< tn << " and has " << DTn << " divisors" << endl;
return 0;
}
About your general question about speed:
1) Algorithms.
How to know them? For (relatively) simple problems, either reading a book/Wikipedia/etc. or figuring it out if you can. For harder stuff, learning more basic things and gaining experience is necessary before it's even possible to understand them, eg. studying CS and/or maths ... number theory helps a lot for your Euler problem. (It will help less to understand how a MP3 file is compressed ... there are many areas, it's not possible to know everything.).
2a) Automated compiler optimizations of frequently used code parts / patterns
2b) Manual timing what program parts are the slowest, and (when not replacing it with another algorithm) changing it in a way that eg. requires less data send to slow devices (HDD, hetwork...), less RAM memory access, less CPU cycles, works better together with OS scheduler and memory management strategies, uses the CPU pipeline/caches better etc.etc. ... this is both education and experience (and a big topic).
And because long variables have a limited size, sometimes it is necessary to use custom types that use eg. a byte array to store a single digit in each byte. That way, it's possible to use the whole RAM for a single number if you want to, but the downside is you/someone has to reimplement stuff like addition and so on for this kind of number storage. (Of course, libs for that exist already, without writing everything from scratch).
Btw., pow is a floating point function and may get you inaccurate results. It's not appropriate to use it in this case.
I know that a reverse ordered list should yield theta(n^2) number of comparisons and theta(n^2) number of exchanges for bubble sort. In my sample code I am using a list of size n = 10. I implemented counters for the numComparisons and numExchanges, and although this doesn't seem very complicated, I can't figure out why my results don't yield 100 comparisons and 100 exchanges. Am I really far off target?
void testList::bubbleSort()
{
int k = 10;
bool flag = true;
while(flag)
{
k = k - 1;
flag = false;
for(int j = 0; j < k; j++)
{
if( vecPtr[j] > vecPtr[j+1])
{
int temp = vecPtr[j];
vecPtr[j] = vecPtr[j+1];
vecPtr[j+1] = temp;
numExchanges += 1;
flag = true;
}
numComparisons++;
}
}
}
The resulting output:
Original List: 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Sorted List: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Comparisons: 45
Exchanges: 45
I also tried this implementation, but my results were the same:
void testList::bubbleSort()
{
int temp;
for(long i = 0; i < 10; i++)
{
for(long j = 0; j < 10-i-1; j++)
{
if (vecPtr[j] > vecPtr[j+1])
{
temp = vecPtr[j];
vecPtr[j] = vecPtr[j+1];
vecPtr[j+1] = temp;
numExchanges++;
}
numComparisons++;
}
}
}
Approximately N2/2 comparisons and exchanges are expected.
In particular, the inner loop starts the current value of the outer loop. So, on the first iteration, it traverses the entire array. On each subsequent iteration, it traverses one fewer item in the array.
So, the number of iterations of the inner loop is N + N-1 + N-2 ... 1. On average, that's approximately N/2.
If you want to get more precise, there's one more detail to consider: the inner loop iterates from i+1...N, so its largest value is N-1 iterations, not N iterations.
Therefore, instead of being precisely N2/2, it's really N * (N-1)/2. In your case, that 10*9/2 = 45.
That's the count for the number of comparisons. For swaps, you get some percentage of that, depending on the number of items that are out of order. In your specific case, all items are always out of order (because you're starting with reverse order) so you do a swap for every comparison. With any other ordering, you'd expect the number of swaps to be reduced.
45 = 9 + 8 + 7 + 6 + 5 + 4 + 3 + 2 + 1, so for the exchanges this is correct, but for the comparisons I think there must be a mistake somewhere. Edit: You implemented a slightly more intelligent version than the standard bubble sort, that's why you have only 45 comparisons instead of 90 (it's not 100, one iteration takes 9 comparisons).
I have written this code which has an execution time of 3.664 sec but the time limit is 3 seconds.
The question is this-
N teams participate in a league cricket tournament on Mars, where each
pair of distinct teams plays each other exactly once. Thus, there are a total
of (N × (N1))/2 matches. An expert has assigned a strength to each team,
a positive integer. Strangely, the Martian crowds love onesided matches
and the advertising revenue earned from a match is the absolute value of
the difference between the strengths of the two matches. Given the
strengths of the N teams, find the total advertising revenue earned from all
the matches.
Input format
Line 1 : A single integer, N.
Line 2 : N space separated integers, the strengths of the N teams.
#include<iostream>
using namespace std;
int main()
{
int n;
cin>>n;
int stren[200000];
for(int a=0;a<n;a++)
cin>>stren[a];
long long rev=0;
for(int b=0;b<n;b++)
{
int pos=b;
for(int c=pos;c<n;c++)
{
if(stren[pos]>stren[c])
rev+=(long long)(stren[pos]-stren[c]);
else
rev+=(long long)(stren[c]-stren[pos]);
}
}
cout<<rev;
}
Can you please give me a solution??
Rewrite your loop as:
sort(stren);
for(int b=0;b<n;b++)
{
rev += (2 * b - n + 1) * static_cast<long long>(stren[b]);
}
Live code here
Why does it workYour loops make all pairs of 2 numbers and add the difference to rev. So in a sorted array, bth item is subtracted (n-1-b) times and added b times. Hence the number 2 * b - n + 1
There can be 1 micro optimization that possibly is not needed:
sort(stren);
for(int b = 0, m = 1 - n; b < n; b++, m += 2)
{
rev += m * static_cast<long long>(stren[b]);
}
In place of the if statement, use
rev += std::abs(stren[pos]-stren[c]);
abs returns the positive difference between two integers. This will be much quicker than an if test and ensuing branching. The (long long) cast is also unnecessary although the compiler will probably optimise that out.
There are other optimisations you could make, but this one should do it. If your abs function is poorly implemented on your system, you could always make use of this fast version for computing the absolute value of i:
(i + (i >> 31)) ^ (i >> 31) for a 32 bit int.
This has no branching at all and would beat even an inline ternary! (But you should use int32_t as your data type; if you have 64 bit int then you'll need to adjust my formula.) But we are in the realms of micro-optimisation here.
for(int b = 0; b < n; b++)
{
for(int c = b; c < n; c++)
{
rev += abs(stren[b]-stren[c]);
}
}
This should give you a speed increase, might be enough.
An interesting approach might be to collapse down the strengths from an array - if that distribution is pretty small.
So:
std::unordered_map<int, int> strengths;
for (int i = 0; i < n; ++i) {
int next;
cin >> next;
++strengths[next];
}
This way, we can reduce the number of things we have to sum:
long long rev = 0;
for (auto a = strengths.begin(); a != strengths.end(); ++a) {
for (auto b = std::next(a), b != strengths.end(); ++b) {
rev += abs(a->first - b->first) * (a->second * b->second);
// ^^^^ stren diff ^^^^^^^^ ^^ number of occurences ^^
}
}
cout << rev;
If the strengths tend to be repeated a lot, this could save a lot of cycles.
What exactly we are doing in this problem is: For all combinations of pairs of elements, we are adding up the absolute values of the differences between the elements of the pair. i.e. Consider the sample input
3 10 3 5
Ans (Take only absolute values) = (3-10) + (3-3) + (3-5) + (10-3) + (10-5) + (3-5) = 7 + 0 + 2 + 7 + 5 + 2 = 23
Notice that I have fixed 3, iterated through the remaining elements, found the differences and added them to Ans, then fixed 10, iterated through the remaining elements and so on till the last element
Unfortunately, N(N-1)/2 iterations are required for the above procedure, which wouldn't be ok for the time limit.
Could we better it?
Let's sort the array and repeat this procedure. After sorting, the sample input is now 3 3 5 10
Let's start by fixing the greatest element, 10 and iterating through the array like how we did before (of course, the time complexity is the same)
Ans = (10-3) + (10-3) + (10-5) + (5-3) + (5-3) + (3-3) = 7 + 7 + 5 + 2 + 2 = 23
We could rearrange the above as
Ans = (10)(3)-(3+3+5) + 5(2) - (3+3) + 3(1) - (3)
Notice a pattern? Let's generalize it.
Suppose we have an array of strengths arr[N] of size N indexed from 0
Ans = (arr[N-1])(N-1) - (arr[0] + arr[1] + ... + arr[N-2]) + (arr[N-2])(N-2) - (arr[0] + arr[1] + arr[N-3]) + (arr[N-3])(N-3) - (arr[0] + arr[1] + arr[N-4]) + ... and so on
Right. So let's put this new idea to work. We'll introduce a 'sum' variable. Some basic DP to the rescue.
For i=0 to N-1
sum = sum + arr[i]
Ans = Ans + (arr[i+1]*(i+1)-sum)
That's it, you just have to sort the array and iterate only once through it. Excluding the sorting part, it's down to N iterations from N(N-1)/2, I suppose that's called O(N) time EDIT: That is O(N log N) time overall
Hope it helped!
I am a newbie in C++ and need logical help in the following task.
Given a sequence of n positive integers (n < 10^6; each given integer is less than 10^6), write a program to find the smallest positive integer, which cannot be expressed as a sum of 1, 2, or more items of the given sequence (i.e. each item could be taken 0 or 1 times). Examples: input: 2 3 4, output: 1; input: 1 2 6, output: 4
I cannot seem to construct the logic out of it, why the last output is 4 and how to implement it in C++, any help is greatly appreciated.
Here is my code so far:
#include<iostream>
using namespace std;
const int SIZE = 3;
int main()
{
//Lowest integer by default
int IntLowest = 1;
int x = 0;
//Our sequence numbers
int seq;
int sum = 0;
int buffer[SIZE];
//Loop through array inputting sequence numbers
for (int i = 0; i < SIZE; i++)
{
cout << "Input sequence number: ";
cin >> seq;
buffer[i] = seq;
sum += buffer[i];
}
int UpperBound = sum + 1;
int a = buffer[x] + buffer[x + 1];
int b = buffer[x] + buffer[x + 2];
int c = buffer[x + 1] + buffer[x + 2];
int d = buffer[x] + buffer[x + 1] + buffer[x + 2];
for (int y = IntLowest - 1; y < UpperBound; y++)
{
//How should I proceed from here?
}
return 0;
}
What the answer of Voreno suggests is in fact solving 0-1 knapsack problem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knapsack_problem#0.2F1_Knapsack_Problem). If you follow the link you can read how it can be done without constructing all subsets of initial set (there are too much of them, 2^n). And it would work if the constraints were a bit smaller, like 10^3.
But with n = 10^6 it still requires too much time and space. But there is no need to solve knapsack problem - we just need to find first number we can't get.
The better solution would be to sort the numbers and then iterate through them once, finding for each prefix of your array a number x, such that with that prefix you can get all numbers in interval [1..x]. The minimal number that we cannot get at this point is x + 1. When you consider the next number a[i] you have two options:
a[i] <= x + 1, then you can get all numbers up to x + a[i],
a[i] > x + 1, then you cannot get x + 1 and you have your answer.
Example:
you are given numbers 1, 4, 12, 2, 3.
You sort them (and get 1, 2, 3, 4, 12), start with x = 0, consider each element and update x the following way:
1 <= x + 1, so x = 0 + 1 = 1.
2 <= x + 1, so x = 1 + 2 = 3.
3 <= x + 1, so x = 3 + 3 = 6.
4 <= x + 1, so x = 6 + 4 = 10.
12 > x + 1, so we have found the answer and it is x + 1 = 11.
(Edit: fixed off-by-one error, added example.)
I think this can be done in O(n) time and O(log2(n)) memory complexities.
Assuming that a BSR (highest set bit index) (floor(log2(x))) implementation in O(1) is used.
Algorithm:
1 create an array of (log2(MAXINT)) buckets, 20 in case of 10^6, Each bucket contains the sum and min values (init: min = 2^(i+1)-1, sum = 0). (lazy init may be used for small n)
2 one pass over the input, storing each value in the buckets[bsr(x)].
for (x : buffer) // iterate input
buckets[bsr(x)].min = min(buckets[bsr(x)].min, x)
buckets[bsr(x)].sum += x
3 Iterate over buckets, maintaining unreachable:
int unreachable = 1 // 0 is always reachable
for(b : buckets)
if (unreachable >= b.min)
unreachable += b.sum
else
break
return unreachable
This works because, assuming we are at bucket i, lets consider the two cases:
unreachable >= b.min is true: because this bucket contains values in the range [2^i...2^(i+1)-1], this implies that 2^i <= b.min. in turn, b.min <= unreachable. therefor unreachable+b.min >= 2^(i+1). this means that all values in the bucket may be added (after adding b.min all the other values are smaller) i.e. unreachable += b.sum.
unreachable >= b.min is false: this means that b.min (the smallest number the the remaining sequence) is greater than unreachable. thus we need to return unreachable.
The output of the second input is 4 because that is the smallest positive number that cannot be expressed as a sum of 1,2 or 6 if you can take each item only 0 or 1 times. I hope this can help you understand more:
You have 3 items in that list: 1,2,6
Starting from the smallest positive integer, you start checking if that integer can be the result of the sum of 1 or more numbers of the given sequence.
1 = 1+0+0
2 = 0+2+0
3 = 1+2+0
4 cannot be expressed as a result of the sum of one of the items in the list (1,2,6). Thus 4 is the smallest positive integer which cannot be expressed as a sum of the items of that given sequence.
The last output is 4 because:
1 = 1
2 = 2
1 + 2 = 3
1 + 6 = 7
2 + 6 = 8
1 + 2 + 6 = 9
Therefore, the lowest integer that cannot be represented by any combination of your inputs (1, 2, 6) is 4.
What the question is asking:
Part 1. Find the largest possible integer that can be represented by your input numbers (ie. the sum of all the numbers you are given), that gives the upper bound
UpperBound = sum(all_your_inputs) + 1
Part 2. Find all the integers you can get, by combining the different integers you are given. Ie if you are given a, b and c as integers, find:
a + b, a + c, b + c, and a + b + c
Part 2) + the list of integers, gives you all the integers you can get using your numbers.
cycle for each integer from 1 to UpperBound
for i = 1 to UpperBound
if i not = a number in the list from point 2)
i = your smallest integer
break
This is a clumsy way of doing it, but I'm sure that with some maths it's possible to find a better way?
EDIT: Improved solution
//sort your input numbers from smallest to largest
input_numbers = sort(input_numbers)
//create a list of integers that have been tried numbers
tried_ints = //empty list
for each input in input_numbers
//build combinations of sums of this input and any of the previous inputs
//add the combinations to tried_ints, if not tried before
for 1 to input
//check whether there is a gap in tried_ints
if there_is_gap
//stop the program, return the smallest integer
//the first gap number is the smallest integer
Some time ago I used the (blazing fast) primesieve in python that I found here: Fastest way to list all primes below N
To be precise, this implementation:
def primes2(n):
""" Input n>=6, Returns a list of primes, 2 <= p < n """
n, correction = n-n%6+6, 2-(n%6>1)
sieve = [True] * (n/3)
for i in xrange(1,int(n**0.5)/3+1):
if sieve[i]:
k=3*i+1|1
sieve[ k*k/3 ::2*k] = [False] * ((n/6-k*k/6-1)/k+1)
sieve[k*(k-2*(i&1)+4)/3::2*k] = [False] * ((n/6-k*(k-2*(i&1)+4)/6-1)/k+1)
return [2,3] + [3*i+1|1 for i in xrange(1,n/3-correction) if sieve[i]]
Now I can slightly grasp the idea of the optimizing by automaticly skipping multiples of 2, 3 and so on, but when it comes to porting this algorithm to C++ I get stuck (I have a good understanding of python and a reasonable/bad understanding of C++, but good enough for rock 'n roll).
What I currently have rolled myself is this (isqrt() is just a simple integer square root function):
template <class T>
void primesbelow(T N, std::vector<T> &primes) {
T sievemax = (N-3 + (1-(N % 2))) / 2;
T i;
T sievemaxroot = isqrt(sievemax) + 1;
boost::dynamic_bitset<> sieve(sievemax);
sieve.set();
primes.push_back(2);
for (i = 0; i <= sievemaxroot; i++) {
if (sieve[i]) {
primes.push_back(2*i+3);
for (T j = 3*i+3; j <= sievemax; j += 2*i+3) sieve[j] = 0; // filter multiples
}
}
for (; i <= sievemax; i++) {
if (sieve[i]) primes.push_back(2*i+3);
}
}
This implementation is decent and automatically skips multiples of 2, but if I could port the Python implementation I think it could be much faster (50%-30% or so).
To compare the results (in the hope this question will be successfully answered), the current execution time with N=100000000, g++ -O3 on a Q6600 Ubuntu 10.10 is 1230ms.
Now I would love some help with either understanding what the above Python implementation does or that you would port it for me (not as helpful though).
EDIT
Some extra information about what I find difficult.
I have trouble with the techniques used like the correction variable and in general how it comes together. A link to a site explaining different Eratosthenes optimizations (apart from the simple sites that say "well you just skip multiples of 2, 3 and 5" and then get slam you with a 1000 line C file) would be awesome.
I don't think I would have issues with a 100% direct and literal port, but since after all this is for learning that would be utterly useless.
EDIT
After looking at the code in the original numpy version, it actually is pretty easy to implement and with some thinking not too hard to understand. This is the C++ version I came up with. I'm posting it here in full version to help further readers in case they need a pretty efficient primesieve that is not two million lines of code. This primesieve does all primes under 100000000 in about 415 ms on the same machine as above. That's a 3x speedup, better then I expected!
#include <vector>
#include <boost/dynamic_bitset.hpp>
// http://vault.embedded.com/98/9802fe2.htm - integer square root
unsigned short isqrt(unsigned long a) {
unsigned long rem = 0;
unsigned long root = 0;
for (short i = 0; i < 16; i++) {
root <<= 1;
rem = ((rem << 2) + (a >> 30));
a <<= 2;
root++;
if (root <= rem) {
rem -= root;
root++;
} else root--;
}
return static_cast<unsigned short> (root >> 1);
}
// https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2068372/fastest-way-to-list-all-primes-below-n-in-python/3035188#3035188
// https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5293238/porting-optimized-sieve-of-eratosthenes-from-python-to-c/5293492
template <class T>
void primesbelow(T N, std::vector<T> &primes) {
T i, j, k, l, sievemax, sievemaxroot;
sievemax = N/3;
if ((N % 6) == 2) sievemax++;
sievemaxroot = isqrt(N)/3;
boost::dynamic_bitset<> sieve(sievemax);
sieve.set();
primes.push_back(2);
primes.push_back(3);
for (i = 1; i <= sievemaxroot; i++) {
if (sieve[i]) {
k = (3*i + 1) | 1;
l = (4*k-2*k*(i&1)) / 3;
for (j = k*k/3; j < sievemax; j += 2*k) {
sieve[j] = 0;
sieve[j+l] = 0;
}
primes.push_back(k);
}
}
for (i = sievemaxroot + 1; i < sievemax; i++) {
if (sieve[i]) primes.push_back((3*i+1)|1);
}
}
I'll try to explain as much as I can. The sieve array has an unusual indexing scheme; it stores a bit for each number that is congruent to 1 or 5 mod 6. Thus, a number 6*k + 1 will be stored in position 2*k and k*6 + 5 will be stored in position 2*k + 1. The 3*i+1|1 operation is the inverse of that: it takes numbers of the form 2*n and converts them into 6*n + 1, and takes 2*n + 1 and converts it into 6*n + 5 (the +1|1 thing converts 0 to 1 and 3 to 5). The main loop iterates k through all numbers with that property, starting with 5 (when i is 1); i is the corresponding index into sieve for the number k. The first slice update to sieve then clears all bits in the sieve with indexes of the form k*k/3 + 2*m*k (for m a natural number); the corresponding numbers for those indexes start at k^2 and increase by 6*k at each step. The second slice update starts at index k*(k-2*(i&1)+4)/3 (number k * (k+4) for k congruent to 1 mod 6 and k * (k+2) otherwise) and similarly increases the number by 6*k at each step.
Here's another attempt at an explanation: let candidates be the set of all numbers that are at least 5 and are congruent to either 1 or 5 mod 6. If you multiply two elements in that set, you get another element in the set. Let succ(k) for some k in candidates be the next element (in numerical order) in candidates that is larger than k. In that case, the inner loop of the sieve is basically (using normal indexing for sieve):
for k in candidates:
for (l = k; ; l += 6) sieve[k * l] = False
for (l = succ(k); ; l += 6) sieve[k * l] = False
Because of the limitations on which elements are stored in sieve, that is the same as:
for k in candidates:
for l in candidates where l >= k:
sieve[k * l] = False
which will remove all multiples of k in candidates (other than k itself) from the sieve at some point (either when the current k was used as l earlier or when it is used as k now).
Piggy-Backing onto Howard Hinnant's response, Howard, you don't have to test numbers in the set of all natural numbers not divisible by 2, 3 or 5 for primality, per se. You need simply multiply each number in the array (except 1, which self-eliminates) times itself and every subsequent number in the array. These overlapping products will give you all the non-primes in the array up to whatever point you extend the deterministic-multiplicative process. Thus the first non-prime in the array will be 7 squared, or 49. The 2nd, 7 times 11, or 77, etc. A full explanation here: http://www.primesdemystified.com
As an aside, you can "approximate" prime numbers. Call the approximate prime P. Here are a few formulas:
P = 2*k+1 // not divisible by 2
P = 6*k + {1, 5} // not divisible 2, 3
P = 30*k + {1, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29} // not divisble by 2, 3, 5
The properties of the set of numbers found by these formulas is that P may not be prime, however all primes are in the set P. I.e. if you only test numbers in the set P for prime, you won't miss any.
You can reformulate these formulas to:
P = X*k + {-i, -j, -k, k, j, i}
if that is more convenient for you.
Here is some code that uses this technique with a formula for P not divisible by 2, 3, 5, 7.
This link may represent the extent to which this technique can be practically leveraged.