C++ Recursion Help Using Horner's Method For computiing Polynomials - c++

Question

Here is my code so far. There seems to be soemthing wrong since I keep getting an incorrect answer. I am writing in a text file that is formatted:
2
3.0 1.0
2 being the size of the array and then 3.0 and 1.0 being the coefficients. Hopefully I didnt miss much in my explanation. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
double polyeval(double* polyarray, double x, int arraySize)
{
//int result = 0;
if(arraySize == 0)
{
return polyarray[arraySize];
}
//result += x*(polyarray[arraySize]+polyeval(polyarray,x,arraySize-1));
return polyarray[arraySize-1]+ (x* (polyeval(polyarray,x,arraySize-1)));
//return result;
}
int main ()
{
int arraySize;
double x;
double *polyarray;
ifstream input;
input.open("polynomial.txt");
input >> arraySize;
polyarray = new double [arraySize];
for (int a = arraySize - 1; a >= 0; a--)
{
input >> polyarray[a];
}
cout << "For what value x would you like to evaluate?" << endl;
cin >> x;
cout << "Polynomial Evaluation: " << polyeval(polyarray, x, arraySize);
delete [] polyarray;
}
the idea that if i read in a text file of that format varying in size that it will solve for any value x given by the user

Answer 1

Jut taking a wild guess
for (int a = arraySize - 1; a >= 0; a--)
// ^^
{
input >> polyarray[a];
}

Answer 2

One error is here:
for (int a = arraySize - 1; a > 0; a--)
{ //^^should be a >=0
input >> polyarray[a];
}
You are missing some entry this way.
The recursive function should look like the following:
int polyeval(double* polyarray, double x, int arraySize)
{
if(arraySize == 1)
{
return polyarray[arraySize-1];
}
return x*(polyarray[arraySize-1]+polyeval(polyarray,x,arraySize-1));
}

Answer 3

The problem is mainly with the definition of the polynomial coefficients.
Your code assumes a polynomial on the form:
x( p(n) + x( p(n-1) + x( p(n-2) + ... x(p(1) + p(0)))..))
This line:
result += x*(polyarray[arraySize]+polyeval(polyarray,x,arraySize-1));
Should become:
result += pow(x,arraySize)*polyarray[arraySize]+polyeval(polyarray,x,arraySize-1);
This way the polynomial is defined correctly as p(n)x^n + p(n-1)x^(n-1) ... + p1 x + p0

Answer 4

Couldn't work out exactly what you were trying to do, or why you were using recursion. So I whipped up a non-recursive version that seems to give the right results.
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
double polyeval(const double* polyarray, double x, int arraySize) {
if(arraySize <= 0) { return 0; }
double value = 0;
const double * p = polyarray + (arraySize-1);
for(int i=0; i<arraySize; ++i) {
value *= x;
value += *p;
p--;
}
return value;
}
int main () {
const int arraySize = 3;
const double polyarrayA[3] = {0.0,0.0,1.0}; // 0 + 0 x + 1 x^2
const double polyarrayB[3] = {0.0,1.0,0.0}; // 0 + 1 x + 0 x^2
const double polyarrayC[3] = {1.0,0.0,0.0}; // 1 + 0 x + 0 x^2
cout << "Polynomial Evaluation A f(x) = " << polyeval(polyarrayA, 0.5, arraySize)<<std::endl;
cout << "Polynomial Evaluation B f(x) = " << polyeval(polyarrayB, 0.5, arraySize)<<std::endl;
cout << "Polynomial Evaluation C f(x) = " << polyeval(polyarrayC, 0.5, arraySize)<<std::endl;
}
You can see it running here:
http://ideone.com/HE4r6x