Algorithms question: Largest contiguous subarray selection - algorithm

Q. Given two arrays, A and B, of equal length, find the largest possible contiguous subarray of indices [i,j] such that max(A[i: j]) < min(B[i: j]).
Example: A = [10, 21, 5, 1, 3], B = [3, 1, 4, 23, 56]
Explanation: A[4] = 1, A[5] = 3, B[4] = 23, B[5] = 56, max(A[4], A[5]) < min(B[4], B[5])
The indices are [4,5] (inclusive), and the largest contiguous subarray has length 2
I can do this in O(n2) brute force method but cannot seem to reduce the time complexity. Any ideas?

O(n) solution:
Move index j from left to right and drag i behind so that the window from i to j is valid. So always increase j by 1, and then increase i as much as needed for the window to be valid.
To do that, keep a queue Aq of indexes of non-increasing A-values. Then A[Aq[0]] tells you the max A-value in the window. Similarly, keep a queue for non-decreasing B-values.
For each new j, first update Aq and Bq according to the new A-value and new B-value. Then, while the window is invalid, increase i and drop Aq[0] and Bq[0] if they're i. When both j and i are updated, update the result with the window size j - i - 1.
Python implementation:
def solution(A, B):
Aq = deque()
Bq = deque()
i = 0
maxlen = 0
for j in range(len(A)):
while Aq and A[Aq[-1]] < A[j]:
Aq.pop()
Aq.append(j)
while Bq and B[Bq[-1]] > B[j]:
Bq.pop()
Bq.append(j)
while Aq and A[Aq[0]] >= B[Bq[0]]:
if Aq[0] == i:
Aq.popleft()
if Bq[0] == i:
Bq.popleft()
i += 1
maxlen = max(maxlen, j - i + 1)
return maxlen
Test results from comparing against a naive brute force reference solution:
expect: 83 result: 83 same: True
expect: 147 result: 147 same: True
expect: 105 result: 105 same: True
expect: 71 result: 71 same: True
expect: 110 result: 110 same: True
expect: 56 result: 56 same: True
expect: 140 result: 140 same: True
expect: 109 result: 109 same: True
expect: 86 result: 86 same: True
expect: 166 result: 166 same: True
Testing code (Try it online!)
from timeit import timeit
from random import choices
from collections import deque
from itertools import combinations
def solution(A, B):
Aq = deque()
Bq = deque()
i = 0
maxlen = 0
for j in range(len(A)):
while Aq and A[Aq[-1]] < A[j]:
Aq.pop()
Aq.append(j)
while Bq and B[Bq[-1]] > B[j]:
Bq.pop()
Bq.append(j)
while Aq and A[Aq[0]] >= B[Bq[0]]:
if Aq[0] == i:
Aq.popleft()
if Bq[0] == i:
Bq.popleft()
i += 1
maxlen = max(maxlen, j - i + 1)
return maxlen
def naive(A, B):
return max((j - i + 1
for i, j in combinations(range(len(A)), 2)
if max(A[i:j+1]) < min(B[i:j+1])),
default=0)
for _ in range(10):
n = 500
A = choices(range(42), k=n)
B = choices(range(1234), k=n)
expect = naive(A, B)
result = solution(A, B)
print(f'expect: {expect:3} result: {result:3} same: {result == expect}')

I can see based on the problem, saying we have 2 conditions:
max(A[i,j-1]) < min(B[i,j-1])
max(A[i,j]) >= min(B[i,j])
saying maxA is index of max item in A array in [i,j], minB is index of min item in B array in [i,j]; and anchor is min(maxA, minB)
Then we will have: max(A[i+k,anchor]) >= min(B[i+k,anchor]) ∀ k in [i+1,anchor].
So I come up with a simple algorithm like below:
int extractLongestRange(int n, int[] A, int[] B) {
// n is size of both array
int size = 0;
for(int i = 0; i < n; i++){
int maxAIndex = i;
int minBIndex = i;
for(int j = i; j < n; j++){
if(A[maxAIndex] < A[j]){
maxAIndex = j;
}
if(B[minBIndex] > B[j]){
minBIndex = j;
}
if(A[maxAIndex] >= B[minBIndex]){
if(size < j - i){
size = j - i;
}
// here, need to jump back to min of maxAIndex and minBIndex.
i = Math.min(maxAIndex, minBIndex);
break;
}
// this case, if j reach the end of array
if(j == n - 1){
if(size < j - i + 1){
size = j - i + 1;
i = j;
}
}
}
}
return size;
}
With this approach, the complexity is O(n).
We can change the output to pick-up the other information if needed.

This can be solved in O(n log(n)).
Here is an outline of my technique.
My idea looks like a "rising water level" of maximum in A, keeping track of the "islands" emerging in A, and the "islands" submerging in B. And recording the maximum intersections after they appear from A emerging, or before they disappear from B sinking.
We will need 2 balanced binary trees of intervals in A and B, and a priority queue of events.
The tree of intervals need to support a logarithmic "find and return interval containing i if it exists". It also needs to support a logarithmic "add i to tree, extending/merging intervals as appropriate, and return new interval". And likewise a logarithmic "remove i from tree, shortening, splitting, or deleting its interval as appropriate".
Events can be of the form "remove B[i]" or "add A[i]". The priority queue is sorted first by the size of the element added/subtracted, and then by putting B before A. (So we do not elements of size x to A until all of the elements of size x are removed from B.)
With that in mind, here is pseudocode for how to do it.
Put all possible events in the priority queue
Initialize an empty tree of intervals A_tree
Initialize a tree of intervals B_tree containing the entire range
Initialize max interval to (0, -1) (length 0)
For each event (type, i) in queue:
if event.type = A:
new_interval = A_tree.add(event.i)
if event.i in B_tree:
Intersect event.i's A_tree interval with event.i's B_tree interval
if intersection is longer than max_interval:
update to new and better max_interval
else:
if event.i in A_tree:
Intersect event.i's A_tree interval with event.i's B_tree interval
if intersection is longer than max_interval:
update to new and better max_interval
B_tree.remove(event.i)
Processing any event is O(log(n). There are 2n = O(n) events. So overall time is O(n log(n)).

Related

Given two sequences, find the maximal overlap between ending of one and beginning of the other

I need to find an efficient (pseudo)code to solve the following problem:
Given two sequences of (not necessarily distinct) integers (a[1], a[2], ..., a[n]) and (b[1], b[2], ..., b[n]), find the maximum d such that a[n-d+1] == b[1], a[n-d+2] == b[2], ..., and a[n] == b[d].
This is not homework, I actually came up with this when trying to contract two tensors along as many dimensions as possible. I suspect an efficient algorithm exists (maybe O(n)?), but I cannot come up with something that is not O(n^2). The O(n^2) approach would be the obvious loop on d and then an inner loop on the items to check the required condition until hitting the maximum d. But I suspect something better than this is possible.
You can utilize the z algorithm, a linear time (O(n)) algorithm that:
Given a string S of length n, the Z Algorithm produces an array Z
where Z[i] is the length of the longest substring starting from S[i]
which is also a prefix of S
You need to concatenate your arrays (b+a) and run the algorithm on the resulting constructed array till the first i such that Z[i]+i == m+n.
For example, for a = [1, 2, 3, 6, 2, 3] & b = [2, 3, 6, 2, 1, 0], the concatenation would be [2, 3, 6, 2, 1, 0, 1, 2, 3, 6, 2, 3] which would yield Z[10] = 2 fulfilling Z[i] + i = 12 = m + n.
For O(n) time/space complexity, the trick is to evaluate hashes for each subsequence. Consider the array b:
[b1 b2 b3 ... bn]
Using Horner's method, you can evaluate all the possible hashes for each subsequence. Pick a base value B (bigger than any value in both of your arrays):
from b1 to b1 = b1 * B^1
from b1 to b2 = b1 * B^1 + b2 * B^2
from b1 to b3 = b1 * B^1 + b2 * B^2 + b3 * B^3
...
from b1 to bn = b1 * B^1 + b2 * B^2 + b3 * B^3 + ... + bn * B^n
Note that you can evaluate each sequence in O(1) time, using the result of the previous sequence, hence all the job costs O(n).
Now you have an array Hb = [h(b1), h(b2), ... , h(bn)], where Hb[i] is the hash from b1 until bi.
Do the same thing for the array a, but with a little trick:
from an to an = (an * B^1)
from an-1 to an = (an-1 * B^1) + (an * B^2)
from an-2 to an = (an-2 * B^1) + (an-1 * B^2) + (an * B^3)
...
from a1 to an = (a1 * B^1) + (a2 * B^2) + (a3 * B^3) + ... + (an * B^n)
You must note that, when you step from one sequence to another, you multiply the whole previous sequence by B and add the new value multiplied by B. For example:
from an to an = (an * B^1)
for the next sequence, multiply the previous by B: (an * B^1) * B = (an * B^2)
now sum with the new value multiplied by B: (an-1 * B^1) + (an * B^2)
hence:
from an-1 to an = (an-1 * B^1) + (an * B^2)
Now you have an array Ha = [h(an), h(an-1), ... , h(a1)], where Ha[i] is the hash from ai until an.
Now, you can compare Ha[d] == Hb[d] for all d values from n to 1, if they match, you have your answer.
ATTENTION: this is a hash method, the values can be large and you may have to use a fast exponentiation method and modular arithmetics, which may (hardly) give you collisions, making this method not totally safe. A good practice is to pick a base B as a really big prime number (at least bigger than the biggest value in your arrays). You should also be careful as the limits of the numbers may overflow at each step, so you'll have to use (modulo K) in each operation (where K can be a prime bigger than B).
This means that two different sequences might have the same hash, but two equal sequences will always have the same hash.
This can indeed be done in linear time, O(n), and O(n) extra space. I will assume the input arrays are character strings, but this is not essential.
A naive method would -- after matching k characters that are equal -- find a character that does not match, and go back k-1 units in a, reset the index in b, and then start the matching process from there. This clearly represents a O(n²) worst case.
To avoid this backtracking process, we can observe that going back is not useful if we have not encountered the b[0] character while scanning the last k-1 characters. If we did find that character, then backtracking to that position would only be useful, if in that k sized substring we had a periodic repetition.
For instance, if we look at substring "abcabc" somewhere in a, and b is "abcabd", and we find that the final character of b does not match, we must consider that a successful match might start at the second "a" in the substring, and we should move our current index in b back accordingly before continuing the comparison.
The idea is then to do some preprocessing based on string b to log back-references in b that are useful to check when there is a mismatch. So for instance, if b is "acaacaacd", we could identify these 0-based backreferences (put below each character):
index: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
b: a c a a c a a c d
ref: 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 5
For example, if we have a equal to "acaacaaca" the first mismatch happens on the final character. The above information then tells the algorithm to go back in b to index 5, since "acaac" is common. And then with only changing the current index in b we can continue the matching at the current index of a. In this example the match of the final character then succeeds.
With this we can optimise the search and make sure that the index in a can always progress forwards.
Here is an implementation of that idea in JavaScript, using the most basic syntax of that language only:
function overlapCount(a, b) {
// Deal with cases where the strings differ in length
let startA = 0;
if (a.length > b.length) startA = a.length - b.length;
let endB = b.length;
if (a.length < b.length) endB = a.length;
// Create a back-reference for each index
// that should be followed in case of a mismatch.
// We only need B to make these references:
let map = Array(endB);
let k = 0; // Index that lags behind j
map[0] = 0;
for (let j = 1; j < endB; j++) {
if (b[j] == b[k]) {
map[j] = map[k]; // skip over the same character (optional optimisation)
} else {
map[j] = k;
}
while (k > 0 && b[j] != b[k]) k = map[k];
if (b[j] == b[k]) k++;
}
// Phase 2: use these references while iterating over A
k = 0;
for (let i = startA; i < a.length; i++) {
while (k > 0 && a[i] != b[k]) k = map[k];
if (a[i] == b[k]) k++;
}
return k;
}
console.log(overlapCount("ababaaaabaabab", "abaababaaz")); // 7
Although there are nested while loops, these do not have more iterations in total than n. This is because the value of k strictly decreases in the while body, and cannot become negative. This can only happen when k++ was executed that many times to give enough room for such decreases. So all in all, there cannot be more executions of the while body than there are k++ executions, and the latter is clearly O(n).
To complete, here you can find the same code as above, but in an interactive snippet: you can input your own strings and see the result interactively:
function overlapCount(a, b) {
// Deal with cases where the strings differ in length
let startA = 0;
if (a.length > b.length) startA = a.length - b.length;
let endB = b.length;
if (a.length < b.length) endB = a.length;
// Create a back-reference for each index
// that should be followed in case of a mismatch.
// We only need B to make these references:
let map = Array(endB);
let k = 0; // Index that lags behind j
map[0] = 0;
for (let j = 1; j < endB; j++) {
if (b[j] == b[k]) {
map[j] = map[k]; // skip over the same character (optional optimisation)
} else {
map[j] = k;
}
while (k > 0 && b[j] != b[k]) k = map[k];
if (b[j] == b[k]) k++;
}
// Phase 2: use these references while iterating over A
k = 0;
for (let i = startA; i < a.length; i++) {
while (k > 0 && a[i] != b[k]) k = map[k];
if (a[i] == b[k]) k++;
}
return k;
}
// I/O handling
let [inputA, inputB] = document.querySelectorAll("input");
let output = document.querySelector("pre");
function refresh() {
let a = inputA.value;
let b = inputB.value;
let count = overlapCount(a, b);
let padding = a.length - count;
// Apply some HTML formatting to highlight the overlap:
if (count) {
a = a.slice(0, -count) + "<b>" + a.slice(-count) + "</b>";
b = "<b>" + b.slice(0, count) + "</b>" + b.slice(count);
}
output.innerHTML = count + " overlapping characters:\n" +
a + "\n" +
" ".repeat(padding) + b;
}
document.addEventListener("input", refresh);
refresh();
body { font-family: monospace }
b { background:yellow }
input { width: 90% }
a: <input value="acacaacaa"><br>
b: <input value="acaacaacd"><br>
<pre></pre>

Calculating the Number of Possible Permutations that Meet a Requirement

This question has been bugging me for days now, and I am at a loss as how to solve it. I have tried very hard to solve it on my own, but now I would just very much appreciate some help and a pointer in the right direction.
Problem:
Given a set of numbers, and the maximum limits for which each number can be greater than or less than the following number, determine the number of valid orderings of the numbers according to the limits.
Example:
Numbers: 20, 30, 36, 40
Max amount that a number can be greater than the following number: 16
Max amount that a number can be less than the following number: 8
Here there would be 3 valid orderings:
36 40 30 20
40 36 30 20
40 30 36 20
I have devised a way to generate all valid permutations using recursion and trees, but unfortunately it takes far too long in cases in which there are many valid orders of the list (approaches n! run time I believe). I feel as if there is a quicker, more mathematical way of solving this using combinatorics that I am just not seeing. Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thank you!
EDIT:
Here's the code for the permutation algorithm I came up with. The last part of the code tests it out with the sample I gave above. It is written in Python 3.6.
class block:
def __init__(self, val, children):
self.val = val
self.children = children
# Gets all the possible children of the current head within the limits
def get_children(head, nums, b, visited, u, d):
global total
if all(visited):
total += 1
return
for i in range(b):
if not visited[i]:
if head.val - nums[i] <= d and nums[i] - head.val <= u:
head.children.append(block(nums[i], []))
visited[i] = True
get_children(head.children[-1], nums, b, visited, u, d)
visited[i] = False
# Display all the valid permutations of the current head
def show(head, vals, b):
vals.append(head.val)
if head.children == [] and len(vals) == b:
print(*vals)
return
for child in head.children:
show(child, vals[:], b)
# Test it out with the sample
b, nums, u, d = 4, [20, 30, 36, 40], 8, 16
visited = [False for x in range(b)]
total = 0
heads = []
for i in range(b):
heads.append(block(nums[i], []))
visited[i] = True
get_children(heads[-1], nums, b, visited, u, d)
visited[i] = False
show(heads[-1], [], b)
print(total)
This prints:
36 40 30 20
40 30 36 20
40 36 30 20
3
Trying your approach with 10 equal numbers resulted in a run-time of 35 seconds.
The first thing I noticed is that the function only needs the last entry in the list head, so the function can be simplified to take an integer instead of a list. The following code has three simplifications:
Pass in an integer for head instead of a list
Change total to be a return value instead of a global
Avoid storing the children (as only the count of orderings is required)
The simplified code looks like:
def get_children(head, nums, b, visited, u, d):
if all(visited):
return 1
t = 0
for i in range(b):
if not visited[i]:
if head - nums[i] <= d and nums[i] - head <= u:
head2 = nums[i]
visited[i] = True
t += get_children(head2, nums, b, visited, u, d)
visited[i] = False
return t
# Test it out with the sample
nums, u, d = [20, 30, 36, 40], 8, 16
b = len(nums)
visited = [False for x in range(b)]
total = 0
for i in range(b):
head = nums[i]
visited[i] = True
total += get_children(head, nums, b, visited, u, d)
visited[i] = False
print(total)
This takes 7 seconds for a list of 10 equal numbers.
The second thing I noticed is that (for a particular test case) the return value of get_children only depends on the things that are True in visited and the value of head.
Therefore we can cache the results to avoid recomputing them:
cache={}
# Gets all the possible children of the current head within the limits
def get_children(head, nums, b, visited, u, d):
if all(visited):
return 1
key = head,sum(1<<i for i,v in enumerate(visited) if v)
result = cache.get(key,None)
if result is not None:
return result
t = 0
for i in range(b):
if not visited[i]:
if head - nums[i] <= d and nums[i] - head <= u:
head2 = nums[i]
visited[i] = True
t += get_children(head2, nums, b, visited, u, d)
visited[i] = False
cache[key] = t
return t
This version only takes 0.03 seconds for a list of 10 equal number (i.e. 1000 times faster than the original.)
If you are doing multiple test cases with different values of b/u/d you should reset the cache at the start of each testcase (i.e. cache={}).
As has been noted in the comments, finding all valid permutations here is equivalent to identifying all Hamiltonian paths in the directed graph that has your numbers as vertices and edges corresponding to each pair of numbers that are permitted to follow one another.
Here's a very simple Java (IDEOne) program to find such paths. Whether this makes your problem tractable depends on the size of your graph and the branching factor.
public static void main(String[] args)
{
int[] values = {20, 30, 36, 40};
Vertex[] g = new Vertex[values.length];
for(int i=0; i<g.length; i++)
g[i] = new Vertex(values[i]);
for(int i=0; i<g.length; i++)
for(int j=0; j<g.length; j++)
if(i != j && g[j].id >= g[i].id-16 && g[j].id <= g[i].id+8)
g[i].adj.add(g[j]);
Set<Vertex> toVisit = new HashSet<>(Arrays.asList(g));
LinkedList<Vertex> path = new LinkedList<>();
for(int i=0; i<g.length; i++)
{
path.addLast(g[i]);
toVisit.remove(g[i]);
findPaths(g[i], path, toVisit);
toVisit.add(g[i]);
path.removeLast();
}
}
static void findPaths(Vertex v, LinkedList<Vertex> path, Set<Vertex> toVisit)
{
if(toVisit.isEmpty())
{
System.out.println(path);
return;
}
for(Vertex av : v.adj)
{
if(toVisit.contains(av))
{
toVisit.remove(av);
path.addLast(av);
findPaths(av, path, toVisit);
path.removeLast();
toVisit.add(av);
}
}
}
static class Vertex
{
int id;
List<Vertex> adj;
Vertex(int id)
{
this.id = id;
adj = new ArrayList<>();
}
public String toString()
{
return String.valueOf(id);
}
}
Output:
[36, 40, 30, 20]
[40, 30, 36, 20]
[40, 36, 30, 20]

Algorithm for equiprobable random square binary matrices with two non-adjacent non-zeros in each row and column

It would be great if someone could point me towards an algorithm that would allow me to :
create a random square matrix, with entries 0 and 1, such that
every row and every column contain exactly two non-zero entries,
two non-zero entries cannot be adjacent,
all possible matrices are equiprobable.
Right now I manage to achieve points 1 and 2 doing the following : such a matrix can be transformed, using suitable permutations of rows and columns, into a diagonal block matrix with blocks of the form
1 1 0 0 ... 0
0 1 1 0 ... 0
0 0 1 1 ... 0
.............
1 0 0 0 ... 1
So I start from such a matrix using a partition of [0, ..., n-1] and scramble it by permuting rows and columns randomly. Unfortunately, I can't find a way to integrate the adjacency condition, and I am quite sure that my algorithm won't treat all the matrices equally.
Update
I have managed to achieve point 3. The answer was actually straight under my nose : the block matrix I am creating contains all the information needed to take into account the adjacency condition. First some properties and definitions:
a suitable matrix defines permutations of [1, ..., n] that can be build like so: select a 1 in row 1. The column containing this entry contains exactly one other entry equal to 1 on a row a different from 1. Again, row a contains another entry 1 in a column which contains a second entry 1 on a row b, and so on. This starts a permutation 1 -> a -> b ....
For instance, with the following matrix, starting with the marked entry
v
1 0 1 0 0 0 | 1
0 1 0 0 0 1 | 2
1 0 0 1 0 0 | 3
0 0 1 0 1 0 | 4
0 0 0 1 0 1 | 5
0 1 0 0 1 0 | 6
------------+--
1 2 3 4 5 6 |
we get permutation 1 -> 3 -> 5 -> 2 -> 6 -> 4 -> 1.
the cycles of such a permutation lead to the block matrix I mentioned earlier. I also mentioned scrambling the block matrix using arbitrary permutations on the rows and columns to rebuild a matrix compatible with the requirements.
But I was using any permutation, which led to some adjacent non-zero entries. To avoid that, I have to choose permutations that separate rows (and columns) that are adjacent in the block matrix. Actually, to be more precise, if two rows belong to a same block and are cyclically consecutive (the first and last rows of a block are considered consecutive too), then the permutation I want to apply has to move these rows into non-consecutive rows of the final matrix (I will call two rows incompatible in that case).
So the question becomes : How to build all such permutations ?
The simplest idea is to build a permutation progressively by randomly adding rows that are compatible with the previous one. As an example, consider the case n = 6 using partition 6 = 3 + 3 and the corresponding block matrix
1 1 0 0 0 0 | 1
0 1 1 0 0 0 | 2
1 0 1 0 0 0 | 3
0 0 0 1 1 0 | 4
0 0 0 0 1 1 | 5
0 0 0 1 0 1 | 6
------------+--
1 2 3 4 5 6 |
Here rows 1, 2 and 3 are mutually incompatible, as are 4, 5 and 6. Choose a random row, say 3.
We will write a permutation as an array: [2, 5, 6, 4, 3, 1] meaning 1 -> 2, 2 -> 5, 3 -> 6, ... This means that row 2 of the block matrix will become the first row of the final matrix, row 5 will become the second row, and so on.
Now let's build a suitable permutation by choosing randomly a row, say 3:
p = [3, ...]
The next row will then be chosen randomly among the remaining rows that are compatible with 3 : 4, 5and 6. Say we choose 4:
p = [3, 4, ...]
Next choice has to be made among 1 and 2, for instance 1:
p = [3, 4, 1, ...]
And so on: p = [3, 4, 1, 5, 2, 6].
Applying this permutation to the block matrix, we get:
1 0 1 0 0 0 | 3
0 0 0 1 1 0 | 4
1 1 0 0 0 0 | 1
0 0 0 0 1 1 | 5
0 1 1 0 0 0 | 2
0 0 0 1 0 1 | 6
------------+--
1 2 3 4 5 6 |
Doing so, we manage to vertically isolate all non-zero entries. Same has to be done with the columns, for instance by using permutation p' = [6, 3, 5, 1, 4, 2] to finally get
0 1 0 1 0 0 | 3
0 0 1 0 1 0 | 4
0 0 0 1 0 1 | 1
1 0 1 0 0 0 | 5
0 1 0 0 0 1 | 2
1 0 0 0 1 0 | 6
------------+--
6 3 5 1 4 2 |
So this seems to work quite efficiently, but building these permutations needs to be done with caution, because one can easily be stuck: for instance, with n=6 and partition 6 = 2 + 2 + 2, following the construction rules set up earlier can lead to p = [1, 3, 2, 4, ...]. Unfortunately, 5 and 6 are incompatible, so choosing one or the other makes the last choice impossible. I think I've found all situations that lead to a dead end. I will denote by r the set of remaining choices:
p = [..., x, ?], r = {y} with x and y incompatible
p = [..., x, ?, ?], r = {y, z} with y and z being both incompatible with x (no choice can be made)
p = [..., ?, ?], r = {x, y} with x and y incompatible (any choice would lead to situation 1)
p = [..., ?, ?, ?], r = {x, y, z} with x, y and z being cyclically consecutive (choosing x or z would lead to situation 2, choosing y to situation 3)
p = [..., w, ?, ?, ?], r = {x, y, z} with xwy being a 3-cycle (neither x nor y can be chosen, choosing z would lead to situation 3)
p = [..., ?, ?, ?, ?], r = {w, x, y, z} with wxyz being a 4-cycle (any choice would lead to situation 4)
p = [..., ?, ?, ?, ?], r = {w, x, y, z} with xyz being a 3-cycle (choosing w would lead to situation 4, choosing any other would lead to situation 4)
Now it seems that the following algorithm gives all suitable permutations:
As long as there are strictly more than 5 numbers to choose, choose randomly among the compatible ones.
If there are 5 numbers left to choose: if the remaining numbers contain a 3-cycle or a 4-cycle, break that cycle (i.e. choose a number belonging to that cycle).
If there are 4 numbers left to choose: if the remaining numbers contain three cyclically consecutive numbers, choose one of them.
If there are 3 numbers left to choose: if the remaining numbers contain two cyclically consecutive numbers, choose one of them.
I am quite sure that this allows me to generate all suitable permutations and, hence, all suitable matrices.
Unfortunately, every matrix will be obtained several times, depending on the partition that was chosen.
Intro
Here is some prototype-approach, trying to solve the more general task of
uniform combinatorial sampling, which for our approach here means: we can use this approach for everything which we can formulate as SAT-problem.
It's not exploiting your problem directly and takes a heavy detour. This detour to the SAT-problem can help in regards to theory (more powerful general theoretical results) and efficiency (SAT-solvers).
That being said, it's not an approach if you want to sample within seconds or less (in my experiments), at least while being concerned about uniformity.
Theory
The approach, based on results from complexity-theory, follows this work:
GOMES, Carla P.; SABHARWAL, Ashish; SELMAN, Bart. Near-uniform sampling of combinatorial spaces using XOR constraints. In: Advances In Neural Information Processing Systems. 2007. S. 481-488.
The basic idea:
formulate the problem as SAT-problem
add randomly generated xors to the problem (acting on the decision-variables only! that's important in practice)
this will reduce the number of solutions (some solutions will get impossible)
do that in a loop (with tuned parameters) until only one solution is left!
search for some solution is being done by SAT-solvers or #SAT-solvers (=model-counting)
if there is more than one solution: no xors will be added but a complete restart will be done: add random-xors to the start-problem!
The guarantees:
when tuning the parameters right, this approach achieves near-uniform sampling
this tuning can be costly, as it's based on approximating the number of possible solutions
empirically this can also be costly!
Ante's answer, mentioning the number sequence A001499 actually gives a nice upper bound on the solution-space (as it's just ignoring adjacency-constraints!)
The drawbacks:
inefficient for large problems (in general; not necessarily compared to the alternatives like MCMC and co.)
need to change / reduce parameters to produce samples
those reduced parameters lose the theoretical guarantees
but empirically: good results are still possible!
Parameters:
In practice, the parameters are:
N: number of xors added
L: minimum number of variables part of one xor-constraint
U: maximum number of variables part of one xor-constraint
N is important to reduce the number of possible solutions. Given N constant, the other variables of course also have some effect on that.
Theory says (if i interpret correctly), that we should use L = R = 0.5 * #dec-vars.
This is impossible in practice here, as xor-constraints hurt SAT-solvers a lot!
Here some more scientific slides about the impact of L and U.
They call xors of size 8-20 short-XORS, while we will need to use even shorter ones later!
Implementation
Final version
Here is a pretty hacky implementation in python, using the XorSample scripts from here.
The underlying SAT-solver in use is Cryptominisat.
The code basically boils down to:
Transform the problem to conjunctive normal-form
as DIMACS-CNF
Implement the sampling-approach:
Calls XorSample (pipe-based + file-based)
Call SAT-solver (file-based)
Add samples to some file for later analysis
Code: (i hope i did warn you already about the code-quality)
from itertools import count
from time import time
import subprocess
import numpy as np
import os
import shelve
import uuid
import pickle
from random import SystemRandom
cryptogen = SystemRandom()
""" Helper functions """
# K-ARY CONSTRAINT GENERATION
# ###########################
# SINZ, Carsten. Towards an optimal CNF encoding of boolean cardinality constraints.
# CP, 2005, 3709. Jg., S. 827-831.
def next_var_index(start):
next_var = start
while(True):
yield next_var
next_var += 1
class s_index():
def __init__(self, start_index):
self.firstEnvVar = start_index
def next(self,i,j,k):
return self.firstEnvVar + i*k +j
def gen_seq_circuit(k, input_indices, next_var_index_gen):
cnf_string = ''
s_index_gen = s_index(next_var_index_gen.next())
# write clauses of first partial sum (i.e. i=0)
cnf_string += (str(-input_indices[0]) + ' ' + str(s_index_gen.next(0,0,k)) + ' 0\n')
for i in range(1, k):
cnf_string += (str(-s_index_gen.next(0, i, k)) + ' 0\n')
# write clauses for general case (i.e. 0 < i < n-1)
for i in range(1, len(input_indices)-1):
cnf_string += (str(-input_indices[i]) + ' ' + str(s_index_gen.next(i, 0, k)) + ' 0\n')
cnf_string += (str(-s_index_gen.next(i-1, 0, k)) + ' ' + str(s_index_gen.next(i, 0, k)) + ' 0\n')
for u in range(1, k):
cnf_string += (str(-input_indices[i]) + ' ' + str(-s_index_gen.next(i-1, u-1, k)) + ' ' + str(s_index_gen.next(i, u, k)) + ' 0\n')
cnf_string += (str(-s_index_gen.next(i-1, u, k)) + ' ' + str(s_index_gen.next(i, u, k)) + ' 0\n')
cnf_string += (str(-input_indices[i]) + ' ' + str(-s_index_gen.next(i-1, k-1, k)) + ' 0\n')
# last clause for last variable
cnf_string += (str(-input_indices[-1]) + ' ' + str(-s_index_gen.next(len(input_indices)-2, k-1, k)) + ' 0\n')
return (cnf_string, (len(input_indices)-1)*k, 2*len(input_indices)*k + len(input_indices) - 3*k - 1)
# K=2 clause GENERATION
# #####################
def gen_at_most_2_constraints(vars, start_var):
constraint_string = ''
used_clauses = 0
used_vars = 0
index_gen = next_var_index(start_var)
circuit = gen_seq_circuit(2, vars, index_gen)
constraint_string += circuit[0]
used_clauses += circuit[2]
used_vars += circuit[1]
start_var += circuit[1]
return [constraint_string, used_clauses, used_vars, start_var]
def gen_at_least_2_constraints(vars, start_var):
k = len(vars) - 2
vars = [-var for var in vars]
constraint_string = ''
used_clauses = 0
used_vars = 0
index_gen = next_var_index(start_var)
circuit = gen_seq_circuit(k, vars, index_gen)
constraint_string += circuit[0]
used_clauses += circuit[2]
used_vars += circuit[1]
start_var += circuit[1]
return [constraint_string, used_clauses, used_vars, start_var]
# Adjacency conflicts
# ###################
def get_all_adjacency_conflicts_4_neighborhood(N, X):
conflicts = set()
for x in range(N):
for y in range(N):
if x < (N-1):
conflicts.add(((x,y),(x+1,y)))
if y < (N-1):
conflicts.add(((x,y),(x,y+1)))
cnf = '' # slow string appends
for (var_a, var_b) in conflicts:
var_a_ = X[var_a]
var_b_ = X[var_b]
cnf += '-' + var_a_ + ' ' + '-' + var_b_ + ' 0 \n'
return cnf, len(conflicts)
# Build SAT-CNF
#############
def build_cnf(N, verbose=False):
var_counter = count(1)
N_CLAUSES = 0
X = np.zeros((N, N), dtype=object)
for a in range(N):
for b in range(N):
X[a,b] = str(next(var_counter))
# Adjacency constraints
CNF, N_CLAUSES = get_all_adjacency_conflicts_4_neighborhood(N, X)
# k=2 constraints
NEXT_VAR = N*N+1
for row in range(N):
constraint_string, used_clauses, used_vars, NEXT_VAR = gen_at_most_2_constraints(X[row, :].astype(int).tolist(), NEXT_VAR)
N_CLAUSES += used_clauses
CNF += constraint_string
constraint_string, used_clauses, used_vars, NEXT_VAR = gen_at_least_2_constraints(X[row, :].astype(int).tolist(), NEXT_VAR)
N_CLAUSES += used_clauses
CNF += constraint_string
for col in range(N):
constraint_string, used_clauses, used_vars, NEXT_VAR = gen_at_most_2_constraints(X[:, col].astype(int).tolist(), NEXT_VAR)
N_CLAUSES += used_clauses
CNF += constraint_string
constraint_string, used_clauses, used_vars, NEXT_VAR = gen_at_least_2_constraints(X[:, col].astype(int).tolist(), NEXT_VAR)
N_CLAUSES += used_clauses
CNF += constraint_string
# build final cnf
CNF = 'p cnf ' + str(NEXT_VAR-1) + ' ' + str(N_CLAUSES) + '\n' + CNF
return X, CNF, NEXT_VAR-1
# External tools
# ##############
def get_random_xor_problem(CNF_IN_fp, N_DEC_VARS, N_ALL_VARS, s, min_l, max_l):
# .cnf not part of arg!
p = subprocess.Popen(['./gen-wff', CNF_IN_fp,
str(N_DEC_VARS), str(N_ALL_VARS),
str(s), str(min_l), str(max_l), 'xored'],
stdin=subprocess.PIPE, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.PIPE)
result = p.communicate()
os.remove(CNF_IN_fp + '-str-xored.xor') # file not needed
return CNF_IN_fp + '-str-xored.cnf'
def solve(CNF_IN_fp, N_DEC_VARS):
seed = cryptogen.randint(0, 2147483647) # actually no reason to do it; but can't hurt either
p = subprocess.Popen(["./cryptominisat5", '-t', '4', '-r', str(seed), CNF_IN_fp], stdin=subprocess.PIPE, stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
result = p.communicate()[0]
sat_line = result.find('s SATISFIABLE')
if sat_line != -1:
# solution found!
vars = parse_solution(result)[:N_DEC_VARS]
# forbid solution (DeMorgan)
negated_vars = list(map(lambda x: x*(-1), vars))
with open(CNF_IN_fp, 'a') as f:
f.write( (str(negated_vars)[1:-1] + ' 0\n').replace(',', ''))
# assume solve is treating last constraint despite not changing header!
# solve again
seed = cryptogen.randint(0, 2147483647)
p = subprocess.Popen(["./cryptominisat5", '-t', '4', '-r', str(seed), CNF_IN_fp], stdin=subprocess.PIPE, stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
result = p.communicate()[0]
sat_line = result.find('s SATISFIABLE')
if sat_line != -1:
os.remove(CNF_IN_fp) # not needed anymore
return True, False, None
else:
return True, True, vars
else:
return False, False, None
def parse_solution(output):
# assumes there is one
vars = []
for line in output.split("\n"):
if line:
if line[0] == 'v':
line_vars = list(map(lambda x: int(x), line.split()[1:]))
vars.extend(line_vars)
return vars
# Core-algorithm
# ##############
def xorsample(X, CNF_IN_fp, N_DEC_VARS, N_VARS, s, min_l, max_l):
start_time = time()
while True:
# add s random XOR constraints to F
xored_cnf_fp = get_random_xor_problem(CNF_IN_fp, N_DEC_VARS, N_VARS, s, min_l, max_l)
state_lvl1, state_lvl2, var_sol = solve(xored_cnf_fp, N_DEC_VARS)
print('------------')
if state_lvl1 and state_lvl2:
print('FOUND')
d = shelve.open('N_15_70_4_6_TO_PLOT')
d[str(uuid.uuid4())] = (pickle.dumps(var_sol), time() - start_time)
d.close()
return True
else:
if state_lvl1:
print('sol not unique')
else:
print('no sol found')
print('------------')
""" Run """
N = 15
N_DEC_VARS = N*N
X, CNF, N_VARS = build_cnf(N)
with open('my_problem.cnf', 'w') as f:
f.write(CNF)
counter = 0
while True:
print('sample: ', counter)
xorsample(X, 'my_problem', N_DEC_VARS, N_VARS, 70, 4, 6)
counter += 1
Output will look like (removed some warnings):
------------
no sol found
------------
------------
no sol found
------------
------------
no sol found
------------
------------
sol not unique
------------
------------
FOUND
Core: CNF-formulation
We introduce one variable for every cell of the matrix. N=20 means 400 binary-variables.
Adjancency:
Precalculate all symmetry-reduced conflicts and add conflict-clauses.
Basic theory:
a -> !b
<->
!a v !b (propositional logic)
Row/Col-wise Cardinality:
This is tough to express in CNF and naive approaches need an exponential number
of constraints.
We use some adder-circuit based encoding (SINZ, Carsten. Towards an optimal CNF encoding of boolean cardinality constraints) which introduces new auxiliary-variables.
Remark:
sum(var_set) <= k
<->
sum(negated(var_set)) >= len(var_set) - k
These SAT-encodings can be put into exact model-counters (for small N; e.g. < 9). The number of solutions equals Ante's results, which is a strong indication for a correct transformation!
There are also interesting approximate model-counters (also heavily based on xor-constraints) like approxMC which shows one more thing we can do with the SAT-formulation. But in practice i have not been able to use these (approxMC = autoconf; no comment).
Other experiments
I did also build a version using pblib, to use more powerful cardinality-formulations
for the SAT-CNF formulation. I did not try to use the C++-based API, but only the reduced pbencoder, which automatically selects some best encoding, which was way worse than my encoding used above (which is best is still a research-problem; often even redundant-constraints can help).
Empirical analysis
For the sake of obtaining some sample-size (given my patience), i only computed samples for N=15. In this case we used:
N=70 xors
L,U = 4,6
I also computed some samples for N=20 with (100,3,6), but this takes a few mins and we reduced the lower bound!
Visualization
Here some animation (strengthening my love-hate relationship with matplotlib):
Edit: And a (reduced) comparison to brute-force uniform-sampling with N=5 (NXOR,L,U = 4, 10, 30):
(I have not yet decided on the addition of the plotting-code. It's as ugly as the above one and people might look too much into my statistical shambles; normalizations and co.)
Theory
Statistical analysis is probably hard to do as the underlying problem is of such combinatoric nature. It's even not entirely obvious how that final cell-PDF should look like. In the case of N=odd, it's probably non-uniform and looks like a chess-board (i did brute-force check N=5 to observe this).
One thing we can be sure about (imho): symmetry!
Given a cell-PDF matrix, we should expect, that the matrix is symmetric (A = A.T).
This is checked in the visualization and the euclidean-norm of differences over time is plotted.
We can do the same on some other observation: observed pairings.
For N=3, we can observe the following pairs:
0,1
0,2
1,2
Now we can do this per-row and per-column and should expect symmetry too!
Sadly, it's probably not easy to say something about the variance and therefore the needed samples to speak about confidence!
Observation
According to my simplified perception, current-samples and the cell-PDF look good, although convergence is not achieved yet (or we are far away from uniformity).
The more important aspect are probably the two norms, nicely decreasing towards 0.
(yes; one could tune some algorithm for that by transposing with prob=0.5; but this is not done here as it would defeat it's purpose).
Potential next steps
Tune parameters
Check out the approach using #SAT-solvers / Model-counters instead of SAT-solvers
Try different CNF-formulations, especially in regards to cardinality-encodings and xor-encodings
XorSample is by default using tseitin-like encoding to get around exponentially grow
for smaller xors (as used) it might be a good idea to use naive encoding (which propagates faster)
XorSample supports that in theory; but the script's work differently in practice
Cryptominisat is known for dedicated XOR-handling (as it was build for analyzing cryptography including many xors) and might gain something by naive encoding (as inferring xors from blown-up CNFs is much harder)
More statistical-analysis
Get rid of XorSample scripts (shell + perl...)
Summary
The approach is very general
This code produces feasible samples
It should be not hard to prove, that every feasible solution can be sampled
Others have proven theoretical guarantees for uniformity for some params
does not hold for our params
Others have empirically / theoretically analyzed smaller parameters (in use here)
(Updated test results, example run-through and code snippets below.)
You can use dynamic programming to calculate the number of solutions resulting from every state (in a much more efficient way than a brute-force algorithm), and use those (pre-calculated) values to create equiprobable random solutions.
Consider the example of a 7x7 matrix; at the start, the state is:
0,0,0,0,0,0,0
meaning that there are seven adjacent unused columns. After adding two ones to the first row, the state could be e.g.:
0,1,0,0,1,0,0
with two columns that now have a one in them. After adding ones to the second row, the state could be e.g.:
0,1,1,0,1,0,1
After three rows are filled, there is a possibility that a column will have its maximum of two ones; this effectively splits the matrix into two independent zones:
1,1,1,0,2,0,1 -> 1,1,1,0 + 0,1
These zones are independent in the sense that the no-adjacent-ones rule has no effect when adding ones to different zones, and the order of the zones has no effect on the number of solutions.
In order to use these states as signatures for types of solutions, we have to transform them into a canonical notation. First, we have to take into account the fact that columns with only 1 one in them may be unusable in the next row, because they contain a one in the current row. So instead of a binary notation, we have to use a ternary notation, e.g.:
2,1,1,0 + 0,1
where the 2 means that this column was used in the current row (and not that there are 2 ones in the column). At the next step, we should then convert the twos back into ones.
Additionally, we can also mirror the seperate groups to put them into their lexicographically smallest notation:
2,1,1,0 + 0,1 -> 0,1,1,2 + 0,1
Lastly, we sort the seperate groups from small to large, and then lexicographically, so that a state in a larger matrix may be e.g.:
0,0 + 0,1 + 0,0,2 + 0,1,0 + 0,1,0,1
Then, when calculating the number of solutions resulting from each state, we can use memoization using the canonical notation of each state as a key.
Creating a dictionary of the states and the number of solutions for each of them only needs to be done once, and a table for larger matrices can probably be used for smaller matrices too.
Practically, you'd generate a random number between 0 and the total number of solutions, and then for every row, you'd look at the different states you could create from the current state, look at the number of unique solutions each one would generate, and see which option leads to the solution that corresponds with your randomly generated number.
Note that every state and the corresponding key can only occur in a particular row, so you can store the keys in seperate dictionaries per row.
TEST RESULTS
A first test using unoptimized JavaScript gave very promising results. With dynamic programming, calculating the number of solutions for a 10x10 matrix now takes a second, where a brute-force algorithm took several hours (and this is the part of the algorithm that only needs to be done once). The size of the dictionary with the signatures and numbers of solutions grows with a diminishing factor approaching 2.5 for each step in size; the time to generate it grows with a factor of around 3.
These are the number of solutions, states, signatures (total size of the dictionaries), and maximum number of signatures per row (largest dictionary per row) that are created:
size unique solutions states signatures max/row
4x4 2 9 6 2
5x5 16 73 26 8
6x6 722 514 107 40
7x7 33,988 2,870 411 152
8x8 2,215,764 13,485 1,411 596
9x9 179,431,924 56,375 4,510 1,983
10x10 17,849,077,140 218,038 13,453 5,672
11x11 2,138,979,146,276 801,266 38,314 14,491
12x12 304,243,884,374,412 2,847,885 104,764 35,803
13x13 50,702,643,217,809,908 9,901,431 278,561 96,414
14x14 9,789,567,606,147,948,364 33,911,578 723,306 238,359
15x15 2,168,538,331,223,656,364,084 114,897,838 1,845,861 548,409
16x16 546,386,962,452,256,865,969,596 ... 4,952,501 1,444,487
17x17 155,420,047,516,794,379,573,558,433 12,837,870 3,754,040
18x18 48,614,566,676,379,251,956,711,945,475 31,452,747 8,992,972
19x19 17,139,174,923,928,277,182,879,888,254,495 74,818,773 20,929,008
20x20 6,688,262,914,418,168,812,086,412,204,858,650 175,678,000 50,094,203
(Additional results obtained with C++, using a simple 128-bit integer implementation. To count the states, the code had to be run using each state as a seperate signature, which I was unable to do for the largest sizes. )
EXAMPLE
The dictionary for a 5x5 matrix looks like this:
row 0: 00000 -> 16 row 3: 101 -> 0
1112 -> 1
row 1: 20002 -> 2 1121 -> 1
00202 -> 4 1+01 -> 0
02002 -> 2 11+12 -> 2
02020 -> 2 1+121 -> 1
0+1+1 -> 0
row 2: 10212 -> 1 1+112 -> 1
12012 -> 1
12021 -> 2 row 4: 0 -> 0
12102 -> 1 11 -> 0
21012 -> 0 12 -> 0
02121 -> 3 1+1 -> 1
01212 -> 1 1+2 -> 0
The total number of solutions is 16; if we randomly pick a number from 0 to 15, e.g. 13, we can find the corresponding (i.e. the 14th) solution like this:
state: 00000
options: 10100 10010 10001 01010 01001 00101
signature: 00202 02002 20002 02020 02002 00202
solutions: 4 2 2 2 2 4
This tells us that the 14th solution is the 2nd solution of option 00101. The next step is:
state: 00101
options: 10010 01010
signature: 12102 02121
solutions: 1 3
This tells us that the 2nd solution is the 1st solution of option 01010. The next step is:
state: 01111
options: 10100 10001 00101
signature: 11+12 1112 1+01
solutions: 2 1 0
This tells us that the 1st solution is the 1st solution of option 10100. The next step is:
state: 11211
options: 01010 01001
signature: 1+1 1+1
solutions: 1 1
This tells us that the 1st solutions is the 1st solution of option 01010. The last step is:
state: 12221
options: 10001
And the 5x5 matrix corresponding to randomly chosen number 13 is:
0 0 1 0 1
0 1 0 1 0
1 0 1 0 0
0 1 0 1 0
1 0 0 0 1
And here's a quick'n'dirty code example; run the snippet to generate the signature and solution count dictionary, and generate a random 10x10 matrix (it takes a second to generate the dictionary; once that is done, it generates random solutions in half a millisecond):
function signature(state, prev) {
var zones = [], zone = [];
for (var i = 0; i < state.length; i++) {
if (state[i] == 2) {
if (zone.length) zones.push(mirror(zone));
zone = [];
}
else if (prev[i]) zone.push(3);
else zone.push(state[i]);
}
if (zone.length) zones.push(mirror(zone));
zones.sort(function(a,b) {return a.length - b.length || a - b;});
return zones.length ? zones.join("2") : "2";
function mirror(zone) {
var ltr = zone.join('');
zone.reverse();
var rtl = zone.join('');
return (ltr < rtl) ? ltr : rtl;
}
}
function memoize(n) {
var memo = [], empty = [];
for (var i = 0; i <= n; i++) memo[i] = [];
for (var i = 0; i < n; i++) empty[i] = 0;
memo[0][signature(empty, empty)] = next_row(empty, empty, 1);
return memo;
function next_row(state, prev, row) {
if (row > n) return 1;
var solutions = 0;
for (var i = 0; i < n - 2; i++) {
if (state[i] == 2 || prev[i] == 1) continue;
for (var j = i + 2; j < n; j++) {
if (state[j] == 2 || prev[j] == 1) continue;
var s = state.slice(), p = empty.slice();
++s[i]; ++s[j]; ++p[i]; ++p[j];
var sig = signature(s, p);
var sol = memo[row][sig];
if (sol == undefined)
memo[row][sig] = sol = next_row(s, p, row + 1);
solutions += sol;
}
}
return solutions;
}
}
function random_matrix(n, memo) {
var matrix = [], empty = [], state = [], prev = [];
for (var i = 0; i < n; i++) empty[i] = state[i] = prev[i] = 0;
var total = memo[0][signature(empty, empty)];
var pick = Math.floor(Math.random() * total);
document.write("solution " + pick.toLocaleString('en-US') +
" from a total of " + total.toLocaleString('en-US') + "<br>");
for (var row = 1; row <= n; row++) {
var options = find_options(state, prev);
for (var i in options) {
var state_copy = state.slice();
for (var j in state_copy) state_copy[j] += options[i][j];
var sig = signature(state_copy, options[i]);
var solutions = memo[row][sig];
if (pick < solutions) {
matrix.push(options[i].slice());
prev = options[i].slice();
state = state_copy.slice();
break;
}
else pick -= solutions;
}
}
return matrix;
function find_options(state, prev) {
var options = [];
for (var i = 0; i < n - 2; i++) {
if (state[i] == 2 || prev[i] == 1) continue;
for (var j = i + 2; j < n; j++) {
if (state[j] == 2 || prev[j] == 1) continue;
var option = empty.slice();
++option[i]; ++option[j];
options.push(option);
}
}
return options;
}
}
var size = 10;
var memo = memoize(size);
var matrix = random_matrix(size, memo);
for (var row in matrix) document.write(matrix[row] + "<br>");
The code snippet below shows the dictionary of signatures and solution counts for a matrix of size 10x10. I've used a slightly different signature format from the explanation above: the zones are delimited by a '2' instead of a plus sign, and a column which has a one in the previous row is marked with a '3' instead of a '2'. This shows how the keys could be stored in a file as integers with 2×N bits (padded with 2's).
function signature(state, prev) {
var zones = [], zone = [];
for (var i = 0; i < state.length; i++) {
if (state[i] == 2) {
if (zone.length) zones.push(mirror(zone));
zone = [];
}
else if (prev[i]) zone.push(3);
else zone.push(state[i]);
}
if (zone.length) zones.push(mirror(zone));
zones.sort(function(a,b) {return a.length - b.length || a - b;});
return zones.length ? zones.join("2") : "2";
function mirror(zone) {
var ltr = zone.join('');
zone.reverse();
var rtl = zone.join('');
return (ltr < rtl) ? ltr : rtl;
}
}
function memoize(n) {
var memo = [], empty = [];
for (var i = 0; i <= n; i++) memo[i] = [];
for (var i = 0; i < n; i++) empty[i] = 0;
memo[0][signature(empty, empty)] = next_row(empty, empty, 1);
return memo;
function next_row(state, prev, row) {
if (row > n) return 1;
var solutions = 0;
for (var i = 0; i < n - 2; i++) {
if (state[i] == 2 || prev[i] == 1) continue;
for (var j = i + 2; j < n; j++) {
if (state[j] == 2 || prev[j] == 1) continue;
var s = state.slice(), p = empty.slice();
++s[i]; ++s[j]; ++p[i]; ++p[j];
var sig = signature(s, p);
var sol = memo[row][sig];
if (sol == undefined)
memo[row][sig] = sol = next_row(s, p, row + 1);
solutions += sol;
}
}
return solutions;
}
}
var memo = memoize(10);
for (var i in memo) {
document.write("row " + i + ":<br>");
for (var j in memo[i]) {
document.write(""" + j + "": " + memo[i][j] + "<br>");
}
}
Just few thoughts. Number of matrices satisfying conditions for n <= 10:
3 0
4 2
5 16
6 722
7 33988
8 2215764
9 179431924
10 17849077140
Unfortunatelly there is no sequence with these numbers in OEIS.
There is one similar (A001499), without condition for neighbouring one's. Number of nxn matrices in this case is 'of order' as A001499's number of (n-1)x(n-1) matrices. That is to be expected since number
of ways to fill one row in this case, position 2 one's in n places with at least one zero between them is ((n-1) choose 2). Same as to position 2 one's in (n-1) places without the restriction.
I don't think there is an easy connection between these matrix of order n and A001499 matrix of order n-1, meaning that if we have A001499 matrix than we can construct some of these matrices.
With this, for n=20, number of matrices is >10^30. Quite a lot :-/
This solution use recursion in order to set the cell of the matrix one by one. If the random walk finish with an impossible solution then we rollback one step in the tree and we continue the random walk.
The algorithm is efficient and i think that the generated data are highly equiprobable.
package rndsqmatrix;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Collections;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.stream.IntStream;
public class RndSqMatrix {
/**
* Generate a random matrix
* #param size the size of the matrix
* #return the matrix encoded in 1d array i=(x+y*size)
*/
public static int[] generate(final int size) {
return generate(size, new int[size * size], new int[size],
new int[size]);
}
/**
* Build a matrix recursivly with a random walk
* #param size the size of the matrix
* #param matrix the matrix encoded in 1d array i=(x+y*size)
* #param rowSum
* #param colSum
* #return
*/
private static int[] generate(final int size, final int[] matrix,
final int[] rowSum, final int[] colSum) {
// generate list of valid positions
final List<Integer> positions = new ArrayList();
for (int y = 0; y < size; y++) {
if (rowSum[y] < 2) {
for (int x = 0; x < size; x++) {
if (colSum[x] < 2) {
final int p = x + y * size;
if (matrix[p] == 0
&& (x == 0 || matrix[p - 1] == 0)
&& (x == size - 1 || matrix[p + 1] == 0)
&& (y == 0 || matrix[p - size] == 0)
&& (y == size - 1 || matrix[p + size] == 0)) {
positions.add(p);
}
}
}
}
}
// no valid positions ?
if (positions.isEmpty()) {
// if the matrix is incomplete => return null
for (int i = 0; i < size; i++) {
if (rowSum[i] != 2 || colSum[i] != 2) {
return null;
}
}
// the matrix is complete => return it
return matrix;
}
// random walk
Collections.shuffle(positions);
for (int p : positions) {
// set '1' and continue recursivly the exploration
matrix[p] = 1;
rowSum[p / size]++;
colSum[p % size]++;
final int[] solMatrix = generate(size, matrix, rowSum, colSum);
if (solMatrix != null) {
return solMatrix;
}
// rollback
matrix[p] = 0;
rowSum[p / size]--;
colSum[p % size]--;
}
// we can't find a valid matrix from here => return null
return null;
}
public static void printMatrix(final int size, final int[] matrix) {
for (int y = 0; y < size; y++) {
for (int x = 0; x < size; x++) {
System.out.print(matrix[x + y * size]);
System.out.print(" ");
}
System.out.println();
}
}
public static void printStatistics(final int size, final int count) {
final int sumMatrix[] = new int[size * size];
for (int i = 0; i < count; i++) {
final int[] matrix = generate(size);
for (int j = 0; j < sumMatrix.length; j++) {
sumMatrix[j] += matrix[j];
}
}
printMatrix(size, sumMatrix);
}
public static void checkAlgorithm() {
final int size = 8;
final int count = 2215764;
final int divisor = 122;
final int sumMatrix[] = new int[size * size];
for (int i = 0; i < count/divisor ; i++) {
final int[] matrix = generate(size);
for (int j = 0; j < sumMatrix.length; j++) {
sumMatrix[j] += matrix[j];
}
}
int total = 0;
for(int i=0; i < sumMatrix.length; i++) {
total += sumMatrix[i];
}
final double factor = (double)total / (count/divisor);
System.out.println("Factor=" + factor + " (theory=16.0)");
}
public static void benchmark(final int size, final int count,
final boolean parallel) {
final long begin = System.currentTimeMillis();
if (!parallel) {
for (int i = 0; i < count; i++) {
generate(size);
}
} else {
IntStream.range(0, count).parallel().forEach(i -> generate(size));
}
final long end = System.currentTimeMillis();
System.out.println("rate="
+ (double) (end - begin) / count + "ms/matrix");
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
checkAlgorithm();
benchmark(8, 10000, true);
//printStatistics(8, 2215764/36);
printStatistics(8, 2215764);
}
}
The output is:
Factor=16.0 (theory=16.0)
rate=0.2835ms/matrix
552969 554643 552895 554632 555680 552753 554567 553389
554071 554847 553441 553315 553425 553883 554485 554061
554272 552633 555130 553699 553604 554298 553864 554028
554118 554299 553565 552986 553786 554473 553530 554771
554474 553604 554473 554231 553617 553556 553581 553992
554960 554572 552861 552732 553782 554039 553921 554661
553578 553253 555721 554235 554107 553676 553776 553182
553086 553677 553442 555698 553527 554850 553804 553444
Here is a very fast approach of generating the matrix row by row, written in Java:
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
int n = 100;
Random rnd = new Random();
byte[] mat = new byte[n*n];
byte[] colCount = new byte[n];
//generate row by row
for (int x = 0; x < n; x++) {
//generate a random first bit
int b1 = rnd.nextInt(n);
while ( (x > 0 && mat[(x-1)*n + b1] == 1) || //not adjacent to the one above
(colCount[b1] == 2) //not in a column which has 2
) b1 = rnd.nextInt(n);
//generate a second bit, not equal to the first one
int b2 = rnd.nextInt(n);
while ( (b2 == b1) || //not the same as bit 1
(x > 0 && mat[(x-1)*n + b2] == 1) || //not adjacent to the one above
(colCount[b2] == 2) || //not in a column which has 2
(b2 == b1 - 1) || //not adjacent to b1
(b2 == b1 + 1)
) b2 = rnd.nextInt(n);
//fill the matrix values and increment column counts
mat[x*n + b1] = 1;
mat[x*n + b2] = 1;
colCount[b1]++;
colCount[b2]++;
}
String arr = Arrays.toString(mat).substring(1, n*n*3 - 1);
System.out.println(arr.replaceAll("(.{" + n*3 + "})", "$1\n"));
}
It essentially generates each a random row at a time. If the row will violate any of the conditions, it is generated again (again randomly). I believe this will satisfy condition 4 as well.
Adding a quick note that it will spin forever for N-s where there is no solutions (like N=3).

Display all the possible numbers having its digits in ascending order

Write a program that can display all the possible numbers in between given two numbers, having its digits in ascending order.
For Example:-
Input: 5000 to 6000
Output: 5678 5679 5689 5789
Input: 90 to 124
Output: 123 124
Brute force approach can make it count to all numbers and check of digits for each one of them. But I want approaches that can skip some numbers and can bring complexity lesser than O(n). Do any such solution(s) exists that can give better approach for this problem?
I offer a solution in Python. It is efficient as it considers only the relevant numbers. The basic idea is to count upwards, but handle overflow somewhat differently. While we normally set overflowing digits to 0, here we set them to the previous digit +1. Please check the inline comments for further details. You can play with it here: http://ideone.com/ePvVsQ
def ascending( na, nb ):
assert nb>=na
# split each number into a list of digits
a = list( int(x) for x in str(na))
b = list( int(x) for x in str(nb))
d = len(b) - len(a)
# if both numbers have different length add leading zeros
if d>0:
a = [0]*d + a # add leading zeros
assert len(a) == len(b)
n = len(a)
# check if the initial value has increasing digits as required,
# and fix if necessary
for x in range(d+1, n):
if a[x] <= a[x-1]:
for y in range(x, n):
a[y] = a[y-1] + 1
break
res = [] # result set
while a<=b:
# if we found a value and add it to the result list
# turn the list of digits back into an integer
if max(a) < 10:
res.append( int( ''.join( str(k) for k in a ) ) )
# in order to increase the number we look for the
# least significant digit that can be increased
for x in range( n-1, -1, -1): # count down from n-1 to 0
if a[x] < 10+x-n:
break
# digit x is to be increased
a[x] += 1
# all subsequent digits must be increased accordingly
for y in range( x+1, n ):
a[y] = a[y-1] + 1
return res
print( ascending( 5000, 9000 ) )
Sounds like task from Project Euler. Here is the solution in C++. It is not short, but it is straightforward and effective. Oh, and hey, it uses backtracking.
// Higher order digits at the back
typedef std::vector<int> Digits;
// Extract decimal digits of a number
Digits ExtractDigits(int n)
{
Digits digits;
while (n > 0)
{
digits.push_back(n % 10);
n /= 10;
}
if (digits.empty())
{
digits.push_back(0);
}
return digits;
}
// Main function
void PrintNumsRec(
const Digits& minDigits, // digits of the min value
const Digits& maxDigits, // digits of the max value
Digits& digits, // digits of current value
int pos, // current digits with index greater than pos are already filled
bool minEq, // currently filled digits are the same as of min value
bool maxEq) // currently filled digits are the same as of max value
{
if (pos < 0)
{
// Print current value. Handle leading zeros by yourself, if need
for (auto pDigit = digits.rbegin(); pDigit != digits.rend(); ++pDigit)
{
if (*pDigit >= 0)
{
std::cout << *pDigit;
}
}
std::cout << std::endl;
return;
}
// Compute iteration boundaries for current position
int first = minEq ? minDigits[pos] : 0;
int last = maxEq ? maxDigits[pos] : 9;
// The last filled digit
int prev = digits[pos + 1];
// Make sure generated number has increasing digits
int firstInc = std::max(first, prev + 1);
// Iterate through possible cases for current digit
for (int d = firstInc; d <= last; ++d)
{
digits[pos] = d;
if (d == 0 && prev == -1)
{
// Mark leading zeros with -1
digits[pos] = -1;
}
PrintNumsRec(minDigits, maxDigits, digits, pos - 1, minEq && (d == first), maxEq && (d == last));
}
}
// High-level function
void PrintNums(int min, int max)
{
auto minDigits = ExtractDigits(min);
auto maxDigits = ExtractDigits(max);
// Make digits array of the same size
while (minDigits.size() < maxDigits.size())
{
minDigits.push_back(0);
}
Digits digits(minDigits.size());
int pos = digits.size() - 1;
// Placeholder for leading zero
digits.push_back(-1);
PrintNumsRec(minDigits, maxDigits, digits, pos, true, true);
}
void main()
{
PrintNums(53, 297);
}
It uses recursion to handle arbitrary amount of digits, but it is essentially the same as the nested loops approach. Here is the output for (53, 297):
056
057
058
059
067
068
069
078
079
089
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
134
135
136
137
138
139
145
146
147
148
149
156
157
158
159
167
168
169
178
179
189
234
235
236
237
238
239
245
246
247
248
249
256
257
258
259
267
268
269
278
279
289
Much more interesting problem would be to count all these numbers without explicitly computing it. One would use dynamic programming for that.
There is only a very limited number of numbers which can match your definition (with 9 digits max) and these can be generated very fast. But if you really need speed, just cache the tree or the generated list and do a lookup when you need your result.
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
namespace so_ascending_digits
{
class Program
{
class Node
{
int digit;
int value;
List<Node> children;
public Node(int val = 0, int dig = 0)
{
digit = dig;
value = (val * 10) + digit;
children = new List<Node>();
for (int i = digit + 1; i < 10; i++)
{
children.Add(new Node(value, i));
}
}
public void Collect(ref List<int> collection, int min = 0, int max = Int16.MaxValue)
{
if ((value >= min) && (value <= max)) collection.Add(value);
foreach (Node n in children) if (value * 10 < max) n.Collect(ref collection, min, max);
}
}
static void Main(string[] args)
{
Node root = new Node();
List<int> numbers = new List<int>();
root.Collect(ref numbers, 5000, 6000);
numbers.Sort();
Console.WriteLine(String.Join("\n", numbers));
}
}
}
Why the brute force algorithm may be very inefficient.
One efficient way of encoding the input is to provide two numbers: the lower end of the range, a, and the number of values in the range, b-a-1. This can be encoded in O(lg a + lg (b - a)) bits, since the number of bits needed to represent a number in base-2 is roughly equal to the base-2 logarithm of the number. We can simplify this to O(lg b), because intuitively if b - a is small, then a = O(b), and if b - a is large, then b - a = O(b). Either way, the total input size is O(2 lg b) = O(lg b).
Now the brute force algorithm just checks each number from a to b, and outputs the numbers whose digits in base 10 are in increasing order. There are b - a + 1 possible numbers in that range. However, when you represent this in terms of the input size, you find that b - a + 1 = 2lg (b - a + 1) = 2O(lg b) for a large enough interval.
This means that for an input size n = O(lg b), you may need to check in the worst case O(2 n) values.
A better algorithm
Instead of checking every possible number in the interval, you can simply generate the valid numbers directly. Here's a rough overview of how. A number n can be thought of as a sequence of digits n1 ... nk, where k is again roughly log10 n.
For a and a four-digit number b, the iteration would look something like
for w in a1 .. 9:
for x in w+1 .. 9:
for y in x+1 .. 9:
for x in y+1 .. 9:
m = 1000 * w + 100 * x + 10 * y + w
if m < a:
next
if m > b:
exit
output w ++ x ++ y ++ z (++ is just string concatenation)
where a1 can be considered 0 if a has fewer digits than b.
For larger numbers, you can imagine just adding more nested for loops. In general, if b has d digits, you need d = O(lg b) loops, each of which iterates at most 10 times. The running time is thus O(10 lg b) = O(lg b) , which is a far better than the O(2lg b) running time you get by checking if every number is sorted or not.
One other detail that I have glossed over, which actually does affect the running time. As written, the algorithm needs to consider the time it takes to generate m. Without going into the details, you could assume that this adds at worst a factor of O(lg b) to the running time, resulting in an O(lg2 b) algorithm. However, using a little extra space at the top of each for loop to store partial products would save lots of redundant multiplication, allowing us to preserve the originally stated O(lg b) running time.
One way (pseudo-code):
for (digit3 = '5'; digit3 <= '6'; digit3++)
for (digit2 = digit3+1; digit2 <= '9'; digit2++)
for (digit1 = digit2+1; digit1 <= '9'; digit1++)
for (digit0 = digit1+1; digit0 <= '9'; digit0++)
output = digit3 + digit2 + digit1 + digit0; // concatenation

How to calculate the index (lexicographical order) when the combination is given

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

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