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I'm working on a homework problem that asks me this:
Tiven a finite set of numbers, and a target number, find if the set can be used to calculate the target number using basic math operations (add, sub, mult, div) and using each number in the set exactly once (so I need to exhaust the set). This has to be done with recursion.
So, for example, if I have the set
{1, 2, 3, 4}
and target 10, then I could get to it by using
((3 * 4) - 2)/1 = 10.
I'm trying to phrase the algorithm in pseudo-code, but so far haven't gotten too far. I'm thinking graphs are the way to go, but would definitely appreciate help on this. thanks.
This isn't meant to be the fastest solution, but rather an instructive one.
It recursively generates all equations in postfix notation
It also provides a translation from postfix to infix notation
There is no actual arithmetic calculation done, so you have to implement that on your own
Be careful about division by zero
With 4 operands, 4 possible operators, it generates all 7680 = 5 * 4! * 4^3
possible expressions.
5 is Catalan(3). Catalan(N) is the number of ways to paranthesize N+1 operands.
4! because the 4 operands are permutable
4^3 because the 3 operators each have 4 choice
This definitely does not scale well, as the number of expressions for N operands is [1, 8, 192, 7680, 430080, 30965760, 2724986880, ...].
In general, if you have n+1 operands, and must insert n operators chosen from k possibilities, then there are (2n)!/n! k^n possible equations.
Good luck!
import java.util.*;
public class Expressions {
static String operators = "+-/*";
static String translate(String postfix) {
Stack<String> expr = new Stack<String>();
Scanner sc = new Scanner(postfix);
while (sc.hasNext()) {
String t = sc.next();
if (operators.indexOf(t) == -1) {
expr.push(t);
} else {
expr.push("(" + expr.pop() + t + expr.pop() + ")");
}
}
return expr.pop();
}
static void brute(Integer[] numbers, int stackHeight, String eq) {
if (stackHeight >= 2) {
for (char op : operators.toCharArray()) {
brute(numbers, stackHeight - 1, eq + " " + op);
}
}
boolean allUsedUp = true;
for (int i = 0; i < numbers.length; i++) {
if (numbers[i] != null) {
allUsedUp = false;
Integer n = numbers[i];
numbers[i] = null;
brute(numbers, stackHeight + 1, eq + " " + n);
numbers[i] = n;
}
}
if (allUsedUp && stackHeight == 1) {
System.out.println(eq + " === " + translate(eq));
}
}
static void expression(Integer... numbers) {
brute(numbers, 0, "");
}
public static void main(String args[]) {
expression(1, 2, 3, 4);
}
}
Before thinking about how to solve the problem (like with graphs), it really helps to just look at the problem. If you find yourself stuck and can't seem to come up with any pseudo-code, then most likely there is something that is holding you back; Some other question or concern that hasn't been addressed yet. An example 'sticky' question in this case might be, "What exactly is recursive about this problem?"
Before you read the next paragraph, try to answer this question first. If you knew what was recursive about the problem, then writing a recursive method to solve it might not be very difficult.
You want to know if some expression that uses a set of numbers (each number used only once) gives you a target value. There are four binary operations, each with an inverse. So, in other words, you want to know if the first number operated with some expression of the other numbers gives you the target. Well, in other words, you want to know if some expression of the 'other' numbers is [...]. If not, then using the first operation with the first number doesn't really give you what you need, so try the other ops. If they don't work, then maybe it just wasn't meant to be.
Edit: I thought of this for an infix expression of four operators without parenthesis, since a comment on the original question said that parenthesis were added for the sake of an example (for clarity?) and the use of parenthesis was not explicitly stated.
Well, you didn't mention efficiency so I'm going to post a really brute force solution and let you optimize it if you want to. Since you can have parantheses, it's easy to brute force it using Reverse Polish Notation:
First of all, if your set has n numbers, you must use exactly n - 1 operators. So your solution will be given by a sequence of 2n - 1 symbols from {{your given set}, {*, /, +, -}}
st = a stack of length 2n - 1
n = numbers in your set
a = your set, to which you add *, /, +, -
v[i] = 1 if the NUMBER i has been used before, 0 otherwise
void go(int k)
{
if ( k > 2n - 1 )
{
// eval st as described on Wikipedia.
// Careful though, it might not be valid, so you'll have to check that it is
// if it evals to your target value great, you can build your target from the given numbers. Otherwise, go on.
return;
}
for ( each symbol x in a )
if ( x isn't a number or x is a number but v[x] isn't 1 )
{
st[k] = x;
if ( x is a number )
v[x] = 1;
go(k + 1);
}
}
Generally speaking, when you need to do something recursively it helps to start from the "bottom" and think your way up.
Consider: You have a set S of n numbers {a,b,c,...}, and a set of four operations {+,-,*,/}. Let's call your recursive function that operates on the set F(S)
If n is 1, then F(S) will just be that number.
If n is 2, F(S) can be eight things:
pick your left-hand number from S (2 choices)
then pick an operation to apply (4 choices)
your right-hand number will be whatever is left in the set
Now, you can generalize from the n=2 case:
Pick a number x from S to be the left-hand operand (n choices)
Pick an operation to apply
your right hand number will be F(S-x)
I'll let you take it from here. :)
edit: Mark poses a valid criticism; the above method won't get absolutely everything. To fix that problem, you need to think about it in a slightly different way:
At each step, you first pick an operation (4 choices), and then
partition S into two sets, for the left and right hand operands,
and recursively apply F to both partitions
Finding all partitions of a set into 2 parts isn't trivial itself, though.
Your best clue about how to approach this problem is the fact that your teacher/professor wants you to use recursion. That is, this isn't a math problem - it is a search problem.
Not to give too much away (it is homework after all), but you have to spawn a call to the recursive function using an operator, a number and a list containing the remaining numbers. The recursive function will extract a number from the list and, using the operation passed in, combine it with the number passed in (which is your running total). Take the running total and call yourself again with the remaining items on the list (you'll have to iterate the list within the call but the sequence of calls is depth-first). Do this once for each of the four operators unless Success has been achieved by a previous leg of the search.
I updated this to use a list instead of a stack
When the result of the operation is your target number and your list is empty, then you have successfully found the set of operations (those that traced the path to the successful leaf) - set the Success flag and unwind. Note that the operators aren't on a list nor are they in the call: the function itself always iterates over all four. Your mechanism for "unwinding" the operator sequence from the successful leaf to get the sequence is to return the current operator and number prepended to the value returned by recursive call (only one of which will be successful since you stop at success - that, obviously, is the one to use). If none are successful, then what you return isn't important anyhow.
Update This is much harder when you have to consider expressions like the one that Daniel posted. You have combinatorics on the numbers and the groupings (numbers due to the fact that / and - are order sensitive even without grouping and grouping because it changes precedence). Then, of course, you also have the combinatorics of the operations. It is harder to manage the differences between (4 + 3) * 2 and 4 + (3 * 2) because grouping doesn't recurse like operators or numbers (which you can just iterate over in a breadth-first manner while making your (depth-first) recursive calls).
Here's some Python code to get you started: it just prints all the possible expressions, without worrying too much about redundancy. You'd need to modify it to evaluate expressions and compare to the target number, rather than simply printing them.
The basic idea is: given a set S of numbers, partition S into two subsets left and right in all possible ways (where we don't care about the order or the elements in left and right), such that left and right are both nonempty. Now for each of these partitions, find all ways of combining the elements in left (recursively!), and similarly for right, and combine the two resulting values with all possible operators. The recursion bottoms out when a set has just one element, in which case there's only one value possible.
Even if you don't know Python, the expressions function should be reasonably easy to follow; the splittings function contains some Python oddities, but all it does is to find all the partitions of the list l into left and right pieces.
def splittings(l):
n = len(l)
for i in xrange(2**n):
left = [e for b, e in enumerate(l) if i & 2**b]
right = [e for b, e in enumerate(l) if not i & 2**b]
yield left, right
def expressions(l):
if len(l) == 1:
yield l[0]
else:
for left, right in splittings(l):
if not left or not right:
continue
for el in expressions(left):
for er in expressions(right):
for operator in '+-*/':
yield '(' + el + operator + er + ')'
for x in expressions('1234'):
print x
pusedo code:
Works(list, target)
for n in list
tmp=list.remove(n)
return Works(tmp,target+n) or Works(tmp,target-n) or Works(tmp, n-target) or ...
then you just have to put the base case in. I think I gave away to much.
My question is twofold:
1) As far as I understand, constructs like for loops introduce scope blocks, however I'm having some trouble with a variable that is define outside of said construct. The following code depicts an attempt to extract digits from a number and place them in an array.
n = 654068
l = length(n)
a = Int64[]
for i in 1:(l-1)
temp = n/10^(l-i)
if temp < 1 # ith digit is 0
a = push!(a,0)
else # ith digit is != 0
push!(a,floor(temp))
# update n
n = n - a[i]*10^(l-i)
end
end
# last digit
push!(a,n)
The code executes fine, but when I look at the a array I get this result
julia> a
0-element Array{Int64,1}
I thought that anything that goes on inside the for loop is invisible to the outside, unless I'm operating on variables defined outside the for loop. Moreover, I thought that by using the ! syntax I would operate directly on a, this does not seem to be the case. Would be grateful if anyone can explain to me how this works :)
2) Second question is about syntex used when explaining functions. There is apparently a function called digits that extracts digits from a number and puts them in an array, using the help function I get
julia> help(digits)
Base.digits(n[, base][, pad])
Returns an array of the digits of "n" in the given base,
optionally padded with zeros to a specified size. More significant
digits are at higher indexes, such that "n ==
sum([digits[k]*base^(k-1) for k=1:length(digits)])".
Can anyone explain to me how to interpret the information given about functions in Julia. How am I to interpret digits(n[, base][, pad])? How does one correctly call the digits function? I can't be like this: digits(40125[, 10])?
I'm unable to reproduce you result, running your code gives me
julia> a
1-element Array{Int64,1}:
654068
There's a few mistakes and inefficiencies in the code:
length(n) doesn't give the number of digits in n, but always returns 1 (currently, numbers are iterable, and return a sequence that only contain one number; itself). So the for loop is never run.
/ between integers does floating point division. For extracting digits, you´re better off with div(x,y), which does integer division.
There's no reason to write a = push!(a,x), since push! modifies a in place. So it will be equivalent to writing push!(a,x); a = a.
There's no reason to digits that are zero specially, they are handled just fine by the general case.
Your description of scoping in Julia seems to be correct, I think that it is the above which is giving you trouble.
You could use something like
n = 654068
a = Int64[]
while n != 0
push!(a, n % 10)
n = div(n, 10)
end
reverse!(a)
This loop extracts the digits in opposite order to avoid having to figure out the number of digits in advance, and uses the modulus operator % to extract the least significant digit. It then uses reverse! to get them in the order you wanted, which should be pretty efficient.
About the documentation for digits, [, base] just means that base is an optional parameter. The description should probably be digits(n[, base[, pad]]), since it's not possible to specify pad unless you specify base. Also note that digits will return the least significant digit first, what we get if we remove the reverse! from the code above.
Is this cheating?:
n = 654068
nstr = string(n)
a = map((x) -> x |> string |> int , collect(nstr))
outputs:
6-element Array{Int64,1}:
6
5
4
0
6
8
Let
2|n, 3|n,..., p_i|n, p_ j|n,..., p_k|n
p_i < p_ j< ... < p_k
where all primes up to p_i divide n and
j > i+1
I want to write a code in Mathematica to find p_i and determine {2,3,5,...,p_i}.
thanks.
B = {};
n = 2^6 * 3^8 * 5^3 * 7^2 * 11 * 23 * 29;
For[i = 1, i <= k, i++,
If[Mod[n, Prime[i]] == 0, AppendTo[B, Prime[i]]
If[Mod[n, Prime[i + 1]] > 0, Break[]]]];
mep1= Max[B];
B
mep1
result is
{2,3,5,7,11}
11
I would like to write the code instead of B to get B[n], since I need to draw the graph of mep1[n] for given n.
If I understand your question and code correctly you want a list of prime factors of the integer n but only the initial part of that list which matches the initial part of the list of all prime numbers.
I'll first observe that what you've posted looks much more like C or one of its relatives than like Mathematica. In fact you don't seem to have used any of the power of Mathematica's in-built functions at all. If you want to really use Mathematica you need to start familiarising yourself with these functions; if that doesn't appeal stick to C and its ilk, it's a fairly useful programming language.
The first step I'd take is to get the prime factors of n like this:
listOfFactors = Transpose[FactorInteger[n]][[1]]
Look at the documentation for the details of what FactorInteger returns; here I'm using transposition and part to get only the list of prime factors and to drop their coefficients. You may not notice the use of the Part function, the doubled square brackets are the usual notation. Note also that I don't have Mathematica on this machine so my syntax may be a bit awry.
Next, you want only those elements of listOfFactors which match the corresponding elements in the list of all prime numbers. Do this in two steps. First, get the integers from 1 to k at which the two lists match:
matches = TakeWhile[Range[Length[listOfFactors]],(listOfFactors[[#]]==Prime[#])&]
and then
listOfFactors[[matches]]
I'll leave it to you to:
assemble these fragments into the function you want;
correct the syntactical errors I have made; and
figured out exactly what is going on in each (sub-)expression.
I make no warranty that this approach is the best approach in any general sense, but it makes much better use of Mathematica's intrinsic functionality than your own first try and will, I hope, point you towards better use of the system in future.
On math.SE, a question about math notation enerated a discussion of how programming languages interpret the set {1,...,n} when n=0
The question asked for a mathematical notation to represent the R code 1:n
According to the comments, the mathematical interpretation of {1,...,n} when n=0 is that this is an empty set. A subsequent comment suggested that C is consistent with this interpretation, because for (int i = 1; i < n; i++) returns a empty set because it iterates 0 times.
It is not clear to me what the equivalent statement in R is, but 1:0 returns the vector [1,0]
Thus, for (i in 1:0) print(i) iterates over 1 and 0 (I interpret as analogous to the C code above)
Is this because {1,...,n} is not the correct notation for 1:n?
Does this mean R violates a universal rule?
Is there a consistent interpretation for this set among programming languages?
Each mathematical formalism has its own notation. To suggest that there is a "universal notation" is very "un-mathematical". Look at the notation associated with tensors or groups if you want examples of mathematical domains where multiple notational systems exist.
In R the code x <- 1:0 returns the ordered vector c(1,0). Just as the code x <- 2:-2 returns c(2,1,0,-1,-2). The code x <- seq(1, length=0) returns a sequence of length 0 which is printed in console sessions as integer(0). R is not really designed to mimic set notation but it does have some set functions and it also has packages that more fully implement set notation.
C has no concept of a set that a for loop runs over. A for loop for(a;b;c) d; is simply syntactic sugar for:
a;
loop: if (!b) goto done;
d;
c;
goto loop;
done: ;
See also my response at: Sequence construction that creates an empty sequence if lower is greater than upper bound - in R, seq_len(n) should be used in preference to 1:n for exactly this reason (the latter fails misbehaves when n=0).
some languages support the concept of ranges, in C it is arbitary what you make a for loop do, you could make it mean 0 or you could make it count backwards. In other languages a range that has the second number less that the first often produces a number sequence that is decreasing. But its arbitrary, and there is no universal rule.
How can I generate all perfect numbers between 1 and 100?
A perfect number is a positive integer that is equal to the sum of its proper divisors. For example, 6(=1+2+3) is a perfect number.
So I suspect Frank is looking for an answer in Prolog, and yes it does smell rather homeworky...
For fun I decided to write up my answer. It took me about 50 lines.
So here is the outline of what my predicates look like. Maybe it will help get you thinking the Prolog way.
is_divisor(+Num,+Factor)
divisors(+Num,-Factors)
divisors(+Num,+N,-Factors)
sum(+List,-Total)
sum(+List,+Sofar,-Total)
is_perfect(+N)
perfect(+N,-List)
The + and - are not really part of the parameter names. They are a documentation clue about what the author expects to be instantiated.(NB) "+Foo" means you expect Foo to have a value when the predicate is called. "-Foo" means you expect to Foo to be a variable when the predicate is called, and give it a value by the time it finishes. (kind of like input and output, if it helps to think that way)
Whenever you see a pair of predicates like sum/2 and sum/3, odds are the sum/2 one is like a wrapper to the sum/3 one which is doing something like an accumulator.
I didn't bother to make it print them out nicely. You can just query it directly in the Prolog command line:
?- perfect(100,L).
L = [28, 6] ;
fail.
Another thing that might be helpful, that I find with Prolog predicates, is that there are generally two kinds. One is one that simply checks if something is true. For this kind of predicate, you want everything else to fail. These don't tend to need to be recursive.
Others will want to go through a range (of numbers or a list) and always return a result, even if it is 0 or []. For these types of predicates you need to use recursion and think about your base case.
HTH.
NB: This is called "mode", and you can actually specify them and the compiler/interpreter will enforce them, but I personally just use them in documentation. Also tried to find a page with info about Prolog mode, but I can't find a good link. :(
I'm not sure if this is what you were looking for, but you could always just print out "6, 28"...
Well looks like you need to loop up until n/2 that is 1/2 of n. Divide the number and if there is no remainder then you can include it in the total, once you have exhausted 1/2 of n then you check if your total added = the number you are testing.
For instance:
#include "stdafx.h"
#include "iostream"
#include "math.h"
using namespace std;
int main(void)
{
int total=0;
for(int i = 1; i<=100; i++)
{
for( int j=1; j<=i/2; j++)
{
if (!(i%j))
{
total+=j;
}
}
if (i==total)
{
cout << i << " is perfect";
}
//it works
total=0;
}
return 0;
}