Large factorial series - c++

Question

I have to print series :-
n*(n-1),n*(n-1)*(n-2),n*(n-1)*(n-2)*(n-3),n*(n-1)*(n-2)*(n-3)*(n-4)...,n!.
Problem is large value of n , it can go upto 37 and n! will obviously go out of bounds ?
I just cant get started , please help , how would you have tackled situation if you were in my place ?

Answer 1

It depends on the language you are using. Some languages automatically switch to a large integer package when numbers get too large for the machine's native integer representation. In other languages, just use a large integer library, which should handle 37! easily.
Wikipedia has a list of arbitrary-precision arithmetic libraries for some languages. There are also lots of other resources on the web.

Answer 2

3 year old problem looked fun.
Simple create a routine to "multiply" a string by a factor. Not highly efficient, yet gets the job done.
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
void mult_array(char *x, unsigned factor) {
unsigned accumulator = 0;
size_t n = strlen(x);
size_t i = n;
while (i > 0) {
i--;
accumulator += (unsigned)(x[i]-'0')*factor;
x[i] = (char) (accumulator%10 + '0');
accumulator /= 10;
}
while (accumulator > 0) {
memmove(x+1, x, ++n);
x[i] = (char) (accumulator%10 + '0');
accumulator /= 10;
}
}
#include <stdio.h>
void AS_Factorial(unsigned n) {
char buf[1000]; // Right-size buffer (problem for another day)
sprintf(buf, "%u", n);
fputs(buf, stdout);
while (n>1) {
n--;
mult_array(buf, n);
printf(",%s", buf);
}
puts("");
}
Sample usage and output
int main(void) {
AS_Factorial(5);
AS_Factorial(37);
return 0;
}
5,20,60,120,120
37,1332,46620,1585080,52307640,1673844480,...,13763753091226345046315979581580902400000000

Answer 3

I have just tried BigInteger in Java and it works.
Working code for demonstration purpose:
import java.math.BigInteger;
public class Factorial {
public static int[] primes = {2,3,5,7,11,13,17,19,23,29,31,37};
public static BigInteger computeFactorial(int n) {
if (n==0) {
return new BigInteger(String.valueOf(1));
} else {
return new BigInteger(String.valueOf(n)).multiply(computeFactorial(n-1));
}
}
public static String getPowers(int n){
BigInteger input = computeFactorial(n);
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
int count = 0;
for (int i = 0; i < primes.length && input.intValue() != 1;) {
BigInteger[] result = input.divideAndRemainder(new BigInteger(String.valueOf(primes[i])));
if (result[1].intValue() == 0) {
input = input.divide(new BigInteger(String.valueOf(primes[i])));
count++;
if (input.intValue() == 1) {sb.append(primes[i] + "(" + count + ") ");}
} else {
if (count!=0)
sb.append(primes[i] + "(" + count + ") ");
count = 0;
i++;
}
}
return sb.toString();
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
System.out.println(getPowers(37));
}
}
Feel free to use it without worrying about copyright if you want.
Update: I didn't realize you were using C++ until now. In that case, you can give boost BigInteger a try.

Answer 4

You may use big integer, but however this still has some limitations, but even though, this datatype can handle a very large value. The value that the big integer can hold, ranges from
-9223372036854775808 to 9223372036854775807 for the signed big integer, and
0 to 18446744073709551615 for the unsigned big integer.
If you really plan to do some bigger value computation which is bigger than the big integer data type, why not try the GMP library?
As from what the site says, "GMP is a free library for arbitrary precision arithmetic, operating on signed integers, rational numbers, and floating point numbers. There is no practical limit to the precision except the ones implied by the available memory in the machine GMP runs on. GMP has a rich set of functions, and the functions have a regular interface." - gmplib.org

Answer 5

You could implement your own big-integer type if it's not permitted to use any thirdparty libraries. You can do something like that:
#include <iostream>
#include <iomanip>
#include <vector>
using namespace std;
const int base = 1000 * 1000 * 1000; // base value, should be the power of 10
const int lbase = 9; // lg(base)
void output_biginteger(vector<int>& a) {
cout << a.back();
for (int i = (int)a.size() - 2; i >= 0; --i)
cout << setw(lbase) << setfill('0') << a[i];
cout << endl;
}
void multiply_biginteger_by_integer(vector<int>& a, int b) {
int carry = 0;
for (int i = 0; i < (int)a.size(); ++i) {
long long cur = (long long)a[i] * b + carry;
carry = cur / base;
a[i] = cur % base;
}
if (carry > 0) {
a.push_back(carry);
}
}
int main() {
int n = 37; // input your n here
vector<int> current(1, n);
for (int i = n - 1; n >= 1; --n) {
multiply_biginteger_by_integer(current, i);
output_biginteger(current);
}
return 0;
}