Related
After asking this question on math.stackexchange.com I figured this might be a better place after all...
I have a small list of positive numbers rounded to (say) two decimals:
1.15 (can be 1.145 - 1.154999...)
1.92 (can be 1.915 - 1.924999...)
2.36 (can be 2.355 - 2.364999...)
2.63 (can be 2.625 - 2.634999...)
2.78 (can be 2.775 - 2.784999...)
3.14 (can be 3.135 - 3.144999...)
24.04 (can be 24.035 - 24.044999...)
I suspect that these numbers are fractions of integers and that all numerators or all denominators are equal. Choosing 100 as a common denominator would work in this case, that would leave the last value as 2404/100. But there could be a 'simpler' solution with much smaller integers.
How do I efficiently find the smallest common numerator and/or denominator? Or (if that is different) the one that would result in the smallest maximum denominator resp. numerator?
Of course I could brute force for small lists/numbers and few decimals. That would find 83/72, 138/72, 170/72, 189/72, 200/72, 226/72 and 1731/72 for this example.
Assuming the numbers don't have too many significant digits and aren't too big you can try increasing the denominator until you find a valid solution. It is not just brute-forcing. Additionally the following script is staying at the number violating the constraints as long as there is nothing found, in the hope of getting the denominator higher faster, without having to calculate for the non-problematic numbers.
It works based on the following formula:
x / y < a / b if x * b < a * y
This means a denominator d is valid if:
ceil(loNum * d / loDen) * hiDen < hiNum * d
The ceil(...) part calculates the smallest possible numerator satisfying the constraint of the low boundary and the rest is checking if it also satysfies the high boundary.
Better would be to work with real integer calculations, e.g. just longs in Java, then the ceil part becomes:
(loNum * d + loDen - 1) / loDen
function findRatios(arr) {
let lo = [], hi = [], consecutive = 0, d = 1
for (let i = 0; i < arr.length; i++) {
let x = '' + arr[i], len = x.length, dot = x.indexOf('.'),
num = parseInt(x.substr(0, dot) + x.substr(dot + 1)) * 10,
den = Math.pow(10, len - dot),
loGcd = gcd(num - 5, den), hiGcd = gcd(num + 5, den)
lo[i] = {num: (num - 5) / loGcd, den: den / loGcd}
hi[i] = {num: (num + 5) / hiGcd, den: den / hiGcd}
}
for (let index = 0; consecutive < arr.length; index = (index + 1) % arr.length) {
if (!valid(d, lo[index], hi[index])) {
consecutive = 1
d++
while (!valid(d, lo[index], hi[index]))
d++
} else {
consecutive++
}
}
for (let i = 0; i < arr.length; i++)
console.log(Math.ceil(lo[i].num * d / lo[i].den) + ' / ' + d)
}
function gcd(x, y) {
while(y) {
let t = y
y = x % y
x = t
}
return x
}
function valid(d, lo, hi) {
let n = Math.ceil(lo.num * d / lo.den)
return n * hi.den < hi.num * d
}
findRatios([1.15, 1.92, 2.36, 2.63, 2.78, 3.14, 24.04])
I want to generate a sequence of strings with the following properties:
Lexically ordered
Theoretically infinite
Compact over a realistic range
Generated by a simple process of incrementation
Matches the regexp /\w+/
The obvious way to generate a lexically-ordered sequence is to choose a string length and pad the strings with a base value like this: 000000, 000001, etc. This approach poses a trade-off between the number of permutations and compactness: a string long enough to yield many permutations will be filled many zeros along the way. Plus, the length I choose sets an upper bound on the total number of permutations unless I have some mechanism for expanding the string when it maxes out.
So I came up with a sequence that works like this:
Each string consists of a "head", which is a base-36 number, followed by an underscore, and then the "tail", which is also a base-36 number padded by an increasing number of zeros
The first cycle goes from 0_0 to 0_z
The second cycle goes from 1_00 to 1_zz
The third cycle goes from 2_000 to 2_zzz, and so on
Once the head has reached z and the tail consists of 36 zs, the first "supercycle" has ended. Now the whole sequence starts over, except the z remains at the beginning, so the new cycle starts with z0_0, then continues to z1_00, and so on
The second supercycle goes zz0_0, zz1_00, and so on
Although the string of zs in the head could become unwieldy over the long run, a single supercycle contains over 10^56 permutations, which is far more than I ever expect to use. The sequence is theoretically infinite but very compact within a realistic range. For instance, the trillionth permutation is a succinct 7_bqd55h8s.
I can generate the sequence relatively simply with this javascript function:
function genStr (n) {
n = BigInt(n);
let prefix = "",
cycle = 0n,
max = 36n ** (cycle + 1n);
while (n >= max) {
n -= max;
if (cycle === 35n) {
prefix += "z";
cycle = 0n;
} else {
cycle++;
}
max = 36n ** (cycle + 1n);
}
return prefix
+ cycle.toString(36)
+ "_"
+ n.toString(36).padStart(Number(cycle) + 1, 0);
}
The n parameter is a number that I increment and pass to the function to get the next member of the sequence. All I need to keep track of is a simple integer, making the sequence very easy to use.
So obviously I spent a lot of time on this and I think it's pretty good, but I'm wondering if there is a better way. Is there a good algorithm for generating a sequence along the lines of the one I'm looking for?
A close idea to yours. (more rafined than my first edit...).
Let our alphabet be A = {0,1,2,3}.
Let |2| mean we iterate from 0 to 2 and |2|^2 mean we generate the cartesian product in a lexically sorted manner (00,01,10,11).
We start with
0 |3|
So we have a string of length 2. We "unshift" the digit 1 which "factorizes" since any 0|3|... is less than 1|3|^2.
1 |3|^2
Same idea: unshift 2, and make words of length 4.
2 |3|^3
Now we can continue and generate
3 |2| |3|^3
Notice |2| and not |3|. Now our maximum number becomes 32333. And as you did, we can now add the carry and start a new supercycle:
33 0|3|
This is a slight improvement, since _ can now be part of our alphabet: we don't need to reserve it as a token separator.
In our case we can represent in a supercycle:
n + n^2 + ... + n^(n-1) + (n-1) * n^(n-1)
\-----------------------/\--------------/
geometric special
In your case, the special part would be n^n (with the nuance that you have theorically one char less so replace n with n-1 everywhere)
The proposed supercycle is of length :
P = (n \sum_{k = 0}^{n-2} n^k) + (n-1) * n^(n-1)
P = (n \sum_{k = 0}^{n-3} n^k) + n^n
P = n(n^{n-2} - 1)/(n-1) + n^n
Here is an example diff with alphabet A={0,1,2}
my genStr(grandinero)
,00 0_0
,01 0_1
,02 0_2
,100 1_00
,101 1_01
,102 1_02
,110 1_10
,111 1_11
,112 1_12
,120 1_20
,121 1_21
,122 1_22
,2000 2_000
,2001 2_001
,2002 2_002
,2010 2_010
,2011 2_011
,2012 2_012
,2020 2_020
,2021 2_021
,2022 2_022
,2100 2_100
,2101 2_101
,2102 2_102
,2110 2_110
,2111 2_111
,2112 2_112
,2120 2_120
,2121 2_121
,2122 2_122
22,00 2_200 <-- end of my supercycle if no '_' allowed
22,01 2_201
22,02 2_202
22,100 2_210
22,101 2_211
22,102 2_212
22,110 2_220
22,111 2_221
22,112 2_222 <-- end of yours
22,120 z0_0
That said, for a given number x, we can can count how many supercycles (E(x / P)) there are, each supercycle making two leading e (e being the last char of A).
e.g: A = {0,1,2} and x = 43
e = 2
P = n(n^{n-2} - 1)/(n-1) + n^n = 3(3^1 -1)/2 + 27 = 30
// our supercycle is of length 30
E(43/30) = 1 // 43 makes one supercycle and a few more "strings"
r = x % P = 13 // this is also x - (E(43/30) * 30) (the rest of the euclidean division by P)
Then for the left over (r = x % P) two cases to consider:
either we fall in the geometric sequence
either we fall in the (n-1) * n^(n-1) part.
1. Adressing the geometric sequence with cumulative sums (x < S_w)
Let S_i be the cumsum of n, n^2,..
S_i = n\sum_{k = 0}^{i-1} n^k
S_i = n/(n-1)*(n^i - 1)
which gives S_0 = 0, S_1 = n, S_2 = n + n^2...
So basically, if x < S_1, we get 0(x), elif x < S_2, we get 1(x-S_1)
Let S_w = S_{n-1} the count of all the numbers we can represent.
If x <= S_w then we want the i such that
S_i < x <= S_{i+1} <=> n^i < (n-1)/n * x + 1 <= n^{i+1}
We can then apply some log flooring (base(n)) to get that i.
We can then associate the string: A[i] + base_n(x - S_i).
Illustration:
This time with A = {0,1,2,3}.
Let x be 17.
Our consecutive S_i are:
S_0 = 0
S_1 = 4
S_2 = S_1 + 4^2 = 20
S_3 = S_2 + 4^3 = 84
S_w = S_{4-1} = S_3 = 84
x=17 is indeed less than 84, we will be able to affect it to one of the S_i ranges.
In particular S_1==4 < x==17 <= S_2==20.
We remove the strings encoded by the leading 0(there are a number S_1 of those strings).
The position to encode with the leading 1 is
x - 4 = 13.
And we conclude the thirteen's string generated with a leading 1 is base_4(13) = '31' (idem string -> '131')
Should we have had x = 21, we would have removed the count of S_2 so 21-20 = 1, which in turn gives with a leading 2 the string '2001'.
2. Adressing x in the special part (x >= S_w)
Let's consider study case below:
with A = {0,1,2}
The special part is
2 |1| |2|^2
that is:
2 0 00
2 0 01
2 0 02
2 0 10
2 0 11
2 0 12
2 0 20
2 0 21
2 0 22
2 1 20
2 1 21
2 1 22
2 1 10
2 1 11
2 1 12
2 1 20
2 1 21
2 1 22
Each incremented number of the second column (here 0 to 1 (specified from |1|)) gives 3^2 combination.
This is similar to the geometric series except that here each range is constant. We want to find the range which means we know which string to prefix.
We can represent it as the matrix
20 (00,01,02,10,11,12,20,21,22)
21 (00,01,02,10,11,12,20,21,22)
The portion in parenthesis is our matrix.
Every item in a row is simply its position base_3 (left-padded with 0).
e.g: n=7 has base_3 value '21'. (7=2*3+1).
'21' does occur in position 7 in the row.
Assuming we get some x (relative to that special part).
E(x / 3^2) gives us the row number (here E(7/9) = 0 so prefix is '20')
x % 3^2 give us the position in the row (here base_3(7%9)='21' giving us the final string '2021')
If we want to observe it remember that we substracted S_w=12 before to get x = 7, so we would call myGen(7+12)
Some code
Notice the same output as long as we stand in the "geometric" range, without supercycle.
Obviously, when carry starts to appear, it depends on whether I can use '_' or not. If yes, my words get shorter otherwise longer.
// https://www.cs.sfu.ca/~ggbaker/zju/math/int-alg.html
// \w insensitive could give base64
// but also éè and other accents...
function base_n(x, n, A) {
const a = []
while (x !== 0n) {
a.push(A[Number(x % n)])
x = x / n // auto floor with bigInt
}
return a.reverse().join('')
}
function mygen (A) {
const n = A.length
const bn = BigInt(n)
const A_last = A[A.length-1]
const S = Array(n).fill(0).map((x, i) => bn * (bn ** BigInt(i) - 1n) / (bn - 1n))
const S_w = S[n-1]
const w = S_w + (bn - 1n) * bn ** (bn - 1n)
const w2 = bn ** (bn - 1n)
const flog_bn = x => {
// https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/1627914/smart-way-to-calculate-floorlogx
let L = 0
while (x >= bn) {
L++
x /= bn
}
return L
}
return function (x) {
x = BigInt(x)
let r = x % w
const q = (x - r) / w
let s
if (r < S_w) {
const i = flog_bn(r * (bn - 1n) / bn + 1n)
const r2 = r - S[i]
s = A[i] + base_n(r2, bn, A).padStart(i+1, '0')
} else {
const n2 = r - S_w
const r2 = n2 % w2
const q2 = (n2 - r2 ) / w2
s = A_last + A[q2] + base_n(r2, bn, A).padStart(n-1, '0')
}
// comma below __not__ necessary, just to ease seeing cycles
return A_last.repeat(2*Number(q)) +','+ s
}
}
function genStr (A) {
A = A.filter(x => x !== '_')
const bn_noUnderscore = BigInt(A.length)
return function (x) {
x = BigInt(x);
let prefix = "",
cycle = 0n,
max = bn_noUnderscore ** (cycle + 1n);
while (x >= max) {
x -= max;
if (cycle === bn_noUnderscore - 1n) {
prefix += "z";
cycle = 0n;
} else {
cycle++;
}
max = bn_noUnderscore ** (cycle + 1n);
}
return prefix
+ base_n(cycle, bn_noUnderscore, A)
+ "_"
+ base_n(x, bn_noUnderscore, A).padStart(Number(cycle) + 1, 0);
}
}
function test(a, b, x){
console.log(a(x), b(x))
}
{
console.log('---my supercycle is shorter if underscore not used. Plenty of room for grandinero')
const A = '0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'.split('').sort((a,b)=>a.localeCompare(b))
let my = mygen(A)
const grandinero = genStr(A)
test(my, grandinero, 1e4)
test(my, grandinero, 1e12)
test(my, grandinero, 106471793335560744271846581685593263893929893610517909620n) // cycle ended for me (w variable value)
}
{
console.log('---\n my supercycle is greater if underscore is used in my alphabet (not grandinero since "forbidden')
// underscore used
const A = '0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz_'.split('').sort((a,b)=>a.localeCompare(b))
let my = mygen(A)
const grandinero = genStr(A)
test(my, grandinero, 1e12)
test(my, grandinero, 106471793335560744271846581685593263893929893610517909620n) // cycle ended for me (w variable value)
test(my, grandinero, 1e57) // still got some place in the supercycle
}
After considering the advice provided by #kaya3 and #grodzi and reviewing my original code, I have made some improvements. I realized a few things:
There was a bug in my original code. If one cycle ends at z_z (actually 36 z's after the underscore, but you get the idea) and the next one begins at z0_0, then lexical ordering is broken because _ comes after 0. The separator (or "neck") needs to be lower in lexical order than the lowest possible value of the head.
Though I was initially resistant to the idea of rolling a custom baseN generator so that more characters can be included, I have now come around to the idea.
I can squeeze more permutations out of a given string length by also incrementing the neck. For example, I can go from A00...A0z to A10...A1z, and so on, thus increasing the number of unique strings I can generate with A as the head before I move on to B.
With that in mind, I have revised my code:
// this is the alphabet used in standard baseN conversions:
let baseAlpha = "0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz";
// this is a factory for creating a new string generator:
function sequenceGenerator (config) {
let
// alphabets for the head, neck and body:
headAlpha = config.headAlpha,
neckAlpha = config.neckAlpha,
bodyAlpha = config.bodyAlpha,
// length of the body alphabet corresponds to the
// base of the numbering system:
base = BigInt(bodyAlpha.length),
// if bodyAlpha is identical to an alphabet that
// would be used for a standard baseN conversion,
// then use the built-in method, which should be
// much faster:
convertBody = baseAlpha.startsWith(bodyAlpha)
? (n) => n.toString(bodyAlpha.length)
// otherwise, roll a custom baseN generator:
: function (n) {
let s = "";
while (n > 0n) {
let i = n % base;
s = bodyAlpha[i] + s;
n = n / base;
}
return s;
},
// n is used to cache the last iteration and is
// incremented each time you call `getNext`
// it can optionally be initialized to a value other
// than 0:
n = BigInt(config.start || 0),
// see below:
headCycles = [0n],
cycleLength = 0n;
// the length of the body increases by 1 each time the
// head increments, meaning that the total number of
// permutations increases geometrically for each
// character in headAlpha
// here we cache the maximum number of permutations for
// each length of the body
// since we know these values ahead of time, calculating
// them in advance saves time when we generate a new
// string
// more importantly, it saves us from having to do a
// reverse calculation involving Math.log, which requires
// converting BigInts to Numbers, which breaks the
// program on larger numbers:
for (let i = 0; i < headAlpha.length; i++) {
// the maximum number of permutations depends on both
// the string length (i + 1) and the number of
// characters in neckAlpha, since the string length
// remains the same while the neck increments
cycleLength += BigInt(neckAlpha.length) * base ** BigInt(i + 1);
headCycles.push(cycleLength);
}
// given a number n, this function searches through
// headCycles to find where the total number of
// permutations exceeds n
// this is how we avoid the reverse calculation with
// Math.log to determine which head cycle we are on for
// a given permutation:
function getHeadCycle (n) {
for (let i = 0; i < headCycles.length; i++) {
if (headCycles[i] > n) return i;
}
}
return {
cycleLength: cycleLength,
getString: function (n) {
let cyclesDone = Number(n / cycleLength),
headLast = headAlpha[headAlpha.length - 1],
prefix = headLast.repeat(cyclesDone),
nn = n % cycleLength,
headCycle = getHeadCycle(nn),
head = headAlpha[headCycle - 1],
nnn = nn - headCycles[headCycle - 1],
neckCycleLength = BigInt(bodyAlpha.length) ** BigInt(headCycle),
neckCycle = nnn / neckCycleLength,
neck = neckAlpha[Number(neckCycle)],
body = convertBody(nnn % neckCycleLength);
body = body.padStart(headCycle , bodyAlpha[0]);
return prefix + head + neck + body;
},
getNext: function () { return this.getString(n++); }
};
}
let bodyAlpha = "0123456789ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ_abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz",
getStr = sequenceGenerator({
// achieve more permutations within a supercycle
// with a larger headAlpha:
headAlpha: "123456789ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz",
// the highest value of neckAlpha must be lower than
// the lowest value of headAlpha:
neckAlpha: "0",
bodyAlpha: bodyAlpha
});
console.log("---supercycle length:");
console.log(Number(getStr.cycleLength));
console.log("---first two values:")
console.log(getStr.getNext());
console.log(getStr.getNext());
console.log("---arbitrary large value (1e57):");
console.log(getStr.getString(BigInt(1e57)));
console.log("");
// here we use a shorter headAlpha and longer neckAlpha
// to shorten the maximum length of the body, but this also
// decreases the number of permutations in the supercycle:
getStr = sequenceGenerator({
headAlpha: "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz",
neckAlpha: "0123456789",
bodyAlpha: bodyAlpha
});
console.log("---supercycle length:");
console.log(Number(getStr.cycleLength));
console.log("---first two values:");
console.log(getStr.getNext());
console.log(getStr.getNext());
console.log("---arbitrary large value (1e57):");
console.log(getStr.getString(BigInt(1e57)));
EDIT
After further discussion with #grodzi, I have made some more improvements:
I realized that the "neck" or separator wasn't providing much value, so I have gotten rid of it. Later edit: actually, the separator is necessary. I am not sure why I thought it wasn't. Without the separator, the beginning of each new supercycle will lexically precede the end of the previous supercycle. I haven't changed my code below, but anyone using this code should include a separator. I have also realized that I was wrong to use an underscore as the separator. The separator must be a character, such as the hyphen, which lexically precedes the lowest digit used in the sequence (0).
I have taken #grodzi's suggestion to allow the length of the tail to continue growing indefinitely.
Here is the new code:
let baseAlpha = "0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz";
function sequenceGenerator (config) {
let headAlpha = config.headAlpha,
tailAlpha = config.tailAlpha,
base = BigInt(tailAlpha.length),
convertTail = baseAlpha.startsWith(tailAlpha)
? (n) => n.toString(tailAlpha.length)
: function (n) {
if (n === 0n) return "0";
let s = "";
while (n > 0n) {
let i = n % base;
s = tailAlpha[i] + s;
n = n / base;
}
return s;
},
n = BigInt(config.start || 0);
return {
getString: function (n) {
let cyclesDone = 0n,
headCycle = 0n,
initLength = 0n,
accum = 0n;
for (;; headCycle++) {
let _accum = accum + base ** (headCycle + 1n + initLength);
if (_accum > n) {
n -= accum;
break;
} else if (Number(headCycle) === headAlpha.length - 1) {
cyclesDone++;
initLength += BigInt(headAlpha.length);
headCycle = -1n;
}
accum = _accum;
}
let headLast = headAlpha[headAlpha.length - 1],
prefix = headLast.repeat(Number(cyclesDone)),
head = headAlpha[Number(headCycle)],
tail = convertTail(n),
tailLength = Number(headCycle + initLength);
tail = tail.padStart(tailLength, tailAlpha[0]);
return prefix + head + tail;
},
getNext: function () { return this.getString(n++); }
};
}
let alpha = "0123456789ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ_abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz",
genStr = sequenceGenerator({headAlpha: alpha, tailAlpha: alpha});
console.log("--- first string:");
console.log(genStr.getString(0n));
console.log("--- 1e+57");
console.log(genStr.getString(BigInt(1e+57)));
console.log("--- end of first supercycle:");
console.log(genStr.getString(63n*(1n-(63n**63n))/(1n-63n)-1n));
console.log("--- start of second supercycle:");
console.log(genStr.getString(63n*(1n-(63n**63n))/(1n-63n)));
I have a formula of a sequence of double numbers k = a + d * n, where a and d are constant double values, n is an integer number, k >= 0, a >= 0. For example:
..., 300, 301.6, 303.2, 304.8, 306.4, ...
I want to round a given number c to a nearest value from this sequence which is lower than c.
Currently I use something like this:
double someFunc(double c) {
static double a = 1;
static double d = 2;
int n = 0;
double a1 = a;
if (c >= a) {
while (a1 < c) {
a1 += d;
}
a1 -= d;
} else {
while (a1 > c) {
a1 -= d;
}
}
return a1;
}
Is it possible to do the same without these awful cycles? I ask because the following situation may appear:
abs(a - c) >> abs(d) (the first number is much more then the second one and so a lot of iterations possible)
My question is similar to the following one. But in my case I also have a a variable which has influence on the final result. It means that a sequence may haven't number 0.
Suppose c is a number in your sequence. Then you have n = (c - a) / d.
Since you want an integer <= c, then take n = floor((c - a) / d).
Then you can round c to: a + d * floor((c - a) / d)
Suppose k = 3 + 5 * n and you round c=21.
And 3 + 5 * floor((21 - 3) / 5) = 3 + 5 * 3 = 18
I am trying to do a fast exponentiation. But the result does not seem to produce the correct result. Any help would be appreciated.
EDIT: Manage to solve it thanks for all the help.
if (content[i] == '1')
s1 = (int)(po1 * (Math.pow(po1, 2)));
else
s1 = po1 * po1;
final_result *= temp;
Check out this Exponation by squaring
You probably want to bit-shift right and square your base each time you encounter a 1 bit in the exponent
int pow(int base, int e)
{
int retVal = 1;
while (e)
{
if (e % 2 == 1)//i.e. last bit of exponent is 1
retVal *= base;
e >>= 1; //bitshift exponent to the right.
base *= base; // square base since we shifted 1 bit in our exponent
}
return retVal ;
}
A good way of thinking about it is that your exponent is being broken down: say, 6^7 (exponent in bits is 1, 1, 1) = 6^1 * 6^2 * 6^4 = 6 * 36 * 36^2 = 6 * 36 * 1296. Your base is always squaring itself.
temp = (int)(g1 * (Math.pow(g1, 2)));
This basically just boils down to g13. I'm not familiar with this algorithm but this can't be right.
Also, as a side note, don't ever call Math.pow(<var>, 2), just write <var> * <var>.
There are several problems with your code, starting with the fact that you are reading the exp string in the wrong direction, adding extra multiplications by the base, and not considering the rank of the 1 when raising the powers of 2.
Here is a python quick sketch of what you are trying to achieve:
a = int(raw_input("base"))
b = "{0:b}".format(int(raw_input("exp")))
res = 1
for index, i in enumerate(b[::-1]):
if i == '1':
res *= a**(2**index)
print res
Alternatively, you could square a at every iteration instead:
for index, i in enumerate(b[::-1]):
if i == '1':
res *= a
a *= a
I know that there is an algorithm that permits, given a combination of number (no repetitions, no order), calculates the index of the lexicographic order.
It would be very useful for my application to speedup things...
For example:
combination(10, 5)
1 - 1 2 3 4 5
2 - 1 2 3 4 6
3 - 1 2 3 4 7
....
251 - 5 7 8 9 10
252 - 6 7 8 9 10
I need that the algorithm returns the index of the given combination.
es: index( 2, 5, 7, 8, 10 ) --> index
EDIT: actually I'm using a java application that generates all combinations C(53, 5) and inserts them into a TreeMap.
My idea is to create an array that contains all combinations (and related data) that I can index with this algorithm.
Everything is to speedup combination searching.
However I tried some (not all) of your solutions and the algorithms that you proposed are slower that a get() from TreeMap.
If it helps: my needs are for a combination of 5 from 53 starting from 0 to 52.
Thank you again to all :-)
Here is a snippet that will do the work.
#include <iostream>
int main()
{
const int n = 10;
const int k = 5;
int combination[k] = {2, 5, 7, 8, 10};
int index = 0;
int j = 0;
for (int i = 0; i != k; ++i)
{
for (++j; j != combination[i]; ++j)
{
index += c(n - j, k - i - 1);
}
}
std::cout << index + 1 << std::endl;
return 0;
}
It assumes you have a function
int c(int n, int k);
that will return the number of combinations of choosing k elements out of n elements.
The loop calculates the number of combinations preceding the given combination.
By adding one at the end we get the actual index.
For the given combination there are
c(9, 4) = 126 combinations containing 1 and hence preceding it in lexicographic order.
Of the combinations containing 2 as the smallest number there are
c(7, 3) = 35 combinations having 3 as the second smallest number
c(6, 3) = 20 combinations having 4 as the second smallest number
All of these are preceding the given combination.
Of the combinations containing 2 and 5 as the two smallest numbers there are
c(4, 2) = 6 combinations having 6 as the third smallest number.
All of these are preceding the given combination.
Etc.
If you put a print statement in the inner loop you will get the numbers
126, 35, 20, 6, 1.
Hope that explains the code.
Convert your number selections to a factorial base number. This number will be the index you want. Technically this calculates the lexicographical index of all permutations, but if you only give it combinations, the indexes will still be well ordered, just with some large gaps for all the permutations that come in between each combination.
Edit: pseudocode removed, it was incorrect, but the method above should work. Too tired to come up with correct pseudocode at the moment.
Edit 2: Here's an example. Say we were choosing a combination of 5 elements from a set of 10 elements, like in your example above. If the combination was 2 3 4 6 8, you would get the related factorial base number like so:
Take the unselected elements and count how many you have to pass by to get to the one you are selecting.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
2 -> 1
1 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
3 -> 1
1 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
4 -> 1
1 5 6 7 8 9 10
6 -> 2
1 5 7 8 9 10
8 -> 3
So the index in factorial base is 1112300000
In decimal base, it's
1*9! + 1*8! + 1*7! + 2*6! + 3*5! = 410040
This is Algorithm 2.7 kSubsetLexRank on page 44 of Combinatorial Algorithms by Kreher and Stinson.
r = 0
t[0] = 0
for i from 1 to k
if t[i - 1] + 1 <= t[i] - 1
for j from t[i - 1] to t[i] - 1
r = r + choose(n - j, k - i)
return r
The array t holds your values, for example [5 7 8 9 10]. The function choose(n, k) calculates the number "n choose k". The result value r will be the index, 251 for the example. Other inputs are n and k, for the example they would be 10 and 5.
zero-base,
# v: array of length k consisting of numbers between 0 and n-1 (ascending)
def index_of_combination(n,k,v):
idx = 0
for p in range(k-1):
if p == 0: arrg = range(1,v[p]+1)
else: arrg = range(v[p-1]+2, v[p]+1)
for a in arrg:
idx += combi[n-a, k-1-p]
idx += v[k-1] - v[k-2] - 1
return idx
Null Set has the right approach. The index corresponds to the factorial-base number of the sequence. You build a factorial-base number just like any other base number, except that the base decreases for each digit.
Now, the value of each digit in the factorial-base number is the number of elements less than it that have not yet been used. So, for combination(10, 5):
(1 2 3 4 5) == 0*9!/5! + 0*8!/5! + 0*7!/5! + 0*6!/5! + 0*5!/5!
== 0*3024 + 0*336 + 0*42 + 0*6 + 0*1
== 0
(10 9 8 7 6) == 9*3024 + 8*336 + 7*42 + 6*6 + 5*1
== 30239
It should be pretty easy to calculate the index incrementally.
If you have a set of positive integers 0<=x_1 < x_2< ... < x_k , then you could use something called the squashed order:
I = sum(j=1..k) Choose(x_j,j)
The beauty of the squashed order is that it works independent of the largest value in the parent set.
The squashed order is not the order you are looking for, but it is related.
To use the squashed order to get the lexicographic order in the set of k-subsets of {1,...,n) is by taking
1 <= x1 < ... < x_k <=n
compute
0 <= n-x_k < n-x_(k-1) ... < n-x_1
Then compute the squashed order index of (n-x_k,...,n-k_1)
Then subtract the squashed order index from Choose(n,k) to get your result, which is the lexicographic index.
If you have relatively small values of n and k, you can cache all the values Choose(a,b) with a
See Anderson, Combinatorics on Finite Sets, pp 112-119
I needed also the same for a project of mine and the fastest solution I found was (Python):
import math
def nCr(n,r):
f = math.factorial
return f(n) / f(r) / f(n-r)
def index(comb,n,k):
r=nCr(n,k)
for i in range(k):
if n-comb[i]<k-i:continue
r=r-nCr(n-comb[i],k-i)
return r
My input "comb" contained elements in increasing order You can test the code with for example:
import itertools
k=3
t=[1,2,3,4,5]
for x in itertools.combinations(t, k):
print x,index(x,len(t),k)
It is not hard to prove that if comb=(a1,a2,a3...,ak) (in increasing order) then:
index=[nCk-(n-a1+1)Ck] + [(n-a1)C(k-1)-(n-a2+1)C(k-1)] + ... =
nCk -(n-a1)Ck -(n-a2)C(k-1) - .... -(n-ak)C1
There's another way to do all this. You could generate all possible combinations and write them into a binary file where each comb is represented by it's index starting from zero. Then, when you need to find an index, and the combination is given, you apply a binary search on the file. Here's the function. It's written in VB.NET 2010 for my lotto program, it works with Israel lottery system so there's a bonus (7th) number; just ignore it.
Public Function Comb2Index( _
ByVal gAr() As Byte) As UInt32
Dim mxPntr As UInt32 = WHL.AMT.WHL_SYS_00 '(16.273.488)
Dim mdPntr As UInt32 = mxPntr \ 2
Dim eqCntr As Byte
Dim rdAr() As Byte
modBinary.OpenFile(WHL.WHL_SYS_00, _
FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read)
Do
modBinary.ReadBlock(mdPntr, rdAr)
RP: If eqCntr = 7 Then GoTo EX
If gAr(eqCntr) = rdAr(eqCntr) Then
eqCntr += 1
GoTo RP
ElseIf gAr(eqCntr) < rdAr(eqCntr) Then
If eqCntr > 0 Then eqCntr = 0
mxPntr = mdPntr
mdPntr \= 2
ElseIf gAr(eqCntr) > rdAr(eqCntr) Then
If eqCntr > 0 Then eqCntr = 0
mdPntr += (mxPntr - mdPntr) \ 2
End If
Loop Until eqCntr = 7
EX: modBinary.CloseFile()
Return mdPntr
End Function
P.S. It takes 5 to 10 mins to generate 16 million combs on a Core 2 Duo. To find the index using binary search on file takes 397 milliseconds on a SATA drive.
Assuming the maximum setSize is not too large, you can simply generate a lookup table, where the inputs are encoded this way:
int index(a,b,c,...)
{
int key = 0;
key |= 1<<a;
key |= 1<<b;
key |= 1<<c;
//repeat for all arguments
return Lookup[key];
}
To generate the lookup table, look at this "banker's order" algorithm. Generate all the combinations, and also store the base index for each nItems. (For the example on p6, this would be [0,1,5,11,15]). Note that by you storing the answers in the opposite order from the example (LSBs set first) you will only need one table, sized for the largest possible set.
Populate the lookup table by walking through the combinations doing Lookup[combination[i]]=i-baseIdx[nItems]
EDIT: Never mind. This is completely wrong.
Let your combination be (a1, a2, ..., ak-1, ak) where a1 < a2 < ... < ak. Let choose(a,b) = a!/(b!*(a-b)!) if a >= b and 0 otherwise. Then, the index you are looking for is
choose(ak-1, k) + choose(ak-1-1, k-1) + choose(ak-2-1, k-2) + ... + choose (a2-1, 2) + choose (a1-1, 1) + 1
The first term counts the number of k-element combinations such that the largest element is less than ak. The second term counts the number of (k-1)-element combinations such that the largest element is less than ak-1. And, so on.
Notice that the size of the universe of elements to be chosen from (10 in your example) does not play a role in the computation of the index. Can you see why?
Sample solution:
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
// The input
var n = 5;
var t = new[] { 2, 4, 5 };
// Helping transformations
ComputeDistances(t);
CorrectDistances(t);
// The algorithm
var r = CalculateRank(t, n);
Console.WriteLine("n = 5");
Console.WriteLine("t = {2, 4, 5}");
Console.WriteLine("r = {0}", r);
Console.ReadKey();
}
static void ComputeDistances(int[] t)
{
var k = t.Length;
while (--k >= 0)
t[k] -= (k + 1);
}
static void CorrectDistances(int[] t)
{
var k = t.Length;
while (--k > 0)
t[k] -= t[k - 1];
}
static int CalculateRank(int[] t, int n)
{
int k = t.Length - 1, r = 0;
for (var i = 0; i < t.Length; i++)
{
if (t[i] == 0)
{
n--;
k--;
continue;
}
for (var j = 0; j < t[i]; j++)
{
n--;
r += CalculateBinomialCoefficient(n, k);
}
n--;
k--;
}
return r;
}
static int CalculateBinomialCoefficient(int n, int k)
{
int i, l = 1, m, x, y;
if (n - k < k)
{
x = k;
y = n - k;
}
else
{
x = n - k;
y = k;
}
for (i = x + 1; i <= n; i++)
l *= i;
m = CalculateFactorial(y);
return l/m;
}
static int CalculateFactorial(int n)
{
int i, w = 1;
for (i = 1; i <= n; i++)
w *= i;
return w;
}
}
The idea behind the scenes is to associate a k-subset with an operation of drawing k-elements from the n-size set. It is a combination, so the overall count of possible items will be (n k). It is a clue that we could seek the solution in Pascal Triangle. After a while of comparing manually written examples with the appropriate numbers from the Pascal Triangle, we will find the pattern and hence the algorithm.
I used user515430's answer and converted to python3. Also this supports non-continuous values so you could pass in [1,3,5,7,9] as your pool instead of range(1,11)
from itertools import combinations
from scipy.special import comb
from pandas import Index
debugcombinations = False
class IndexedCombination:
def __init__(self, _setsize, _poolvalues):
self.setsize = _setsize
self.poolvals = Index(_poolvalues)
self.poolsize = len(self.poolvals)
self.totalcombinations = 1
fast_k = min(self.setsize, self.poolsize - self.setsize)
for i in range(1, fast_k + 1):
self.totalcombinations = self.totalcombinations * (self.poolsize - fast_k + i) // i
#fill the nCr cache
self.choose_cache = {}
n = self.poolsize
k = self.setsize
for i in range(k + 1):
for j in range(n + 1):
if n - j >= k - i:
self.choose_cache[n - j,k - i] = comb(n - j,k - i, exact=True)
if debugcombinations:
print('testnth = ' + str(self.testnth()))
def get_nth_combination(self,index):
n = self.poolsize
r = self.setsize
c = self.totalcombinations
#if index < 0 or index >= c:
# raise IndexError
result = []
while r:
c, n, r = c*r//n, n-1, r-1
while index >= c:
index -= c
c, n = c*(n-r)//n, n-1
result.append(self.poolvals[-1 - n])
return tuple(result)
def get_n_from_combination(self,someset):
n = self.poolsize
k = self.setsize
index = 0
j = 0
for i in range(k):
setidx = self.poolvals.get_loc(someset[i])
for j in range(j + 1, setidx + 1):
index += self.choose_cache[n - j, k - i - 1]
j += 1
return index
#just used to test whether nth_combination from the internet actually works
def testnth(self):
n = 0
_setsize = self.setsize
mainset = self.poolvals
for someset in combinations(mainset, _setsize):
nthset = self.get_nth_combination(n)
n2 = self.get_n_from_combination(nthset)
if debugcombinations:
print(str(n) + ': ' + str(someset) + ' vs ' + str(n2) + ': ' + str(nthset))
if n != n2:
return False
for x in range(_setsize):
if someset[x] != nthset[x]:
return False
n += 1
return True
setcombination = IndexedCombination(5, list(range(1,10+1)))
print( str(setcombination.get_n_from_combination([2,5,7,8,10])))
returns 188