Many Project Euler problems require manipulating integers and their digits, both in base10 and base2. While I have no problem with converting integers in lists of digits, or converting base10 into base2 (or lists of their digits), I often find that performance is poor when doing such conversions repeatedly.
Here's an example:
First, here are my typical conversions:
#lang racket
(define (10->bin num)
(define (10->bin-help num count)
(define sq
(expt 2 count))
(cond
[(zero? count) (list num)]
[else (cons (quotient num sq) (10->bin-help (remainder num sq) (sub1 count)))]
)
)
(member 1 (10->bin-help num 19)))
(define (integer->lon int)
(cond
[(zero? int) empty]
[else (append (integer->lon (quotient int 10)) (list (remainder int 10)))]
)
)
Next, I need a function to test whether a list of digits is a palindrome
(define (is-palindrome? lon)
(equal? lon (reverse lon)))
Finally, I need to sum all base10 integers below some max that are palindromes in base2 and base10. Here's the accumulator-style function:
(define (sum-them max)
(define (sum-acc count acc)
(define base10
(integer->lon count))
(define base2
(10->bin count))
(cond
[(= count max) acc]
[(and
(is-palindrome? base10)
(is-palindrome? base2))
(sum-acc (add1 count) (+ acc count))]
[else (sum-acc (add1 count) acc)]))
(sum-acc 1 0))
And the regular recursive version:
(define (sum-them* max)
(define base10
(integer->lon max))
(define base2
(10->bin max))
(cond
[(zero? max) 0]
[(and
(is-palindrome? base10)
(is-palindrome? base2))
(+ (sum-them* (sub1 max)) max)]
[else (sum-them* (sub1 max))]
)
)
When I apply either of these two last functions to 1000000, I takes well over 10 seconds to complete. The recursive version seems a bit quicker than the accumulator version, but the difference is negligible.
Is there any way I can improve this code, or do I just have to accept that this is the style of number-crunching for which Racket isn't particularly suited?
So far, I have considered the possibility of replacing integer->lon by a similar integer->vector as I expect vector-append to be faster than append, but then I'm stuck with the need to apply reverse later on.
Making your existing code more efficient
Have you considered getting the list of bits using any of Racket's bitwise operations? E.g.,
(define (bits n)
(let loop ((n n) (acc '()))
(if (= 0 n)
acc
(loop (arithmetic-shift n -1) (cons (bitwise-and n 1) acc)))))
> (map bits '(1 3 4 5 7 9 10))
'((1) (1 1) (1 0 0) (1 0 1) (1 1 1) (1 0 0 1) (1 0 1 0))
It'd be interesting to see whether that speeds anything up. I expect it would help a bit, since your 10->bin procedure currently makes a call to expt, quotient, and remainder, whereas bit shifting, depending on the representations used by the compiler, would probably be more efficient.
Your integer->lon is also using a lot more memory than it needs to, since the append is copying most of the result at each step. This is kind of interesting, because you were already using the more memory efficient approach in bin->10. Something like this is more efficient:
(define (digits n)
(let loop ((n n) (acc '()))
(if (zero? n)
acc
(loop (quotient n 10) (cons (remainder n 10) acc)))))
> (map digits '(1238 2391 3729))
'((1 2 3 8) (2 3 9 1) (3 7 2 9))
More efficient approaches
All that said, perhaps you should consider the approach that you're using. It appears that right now, you're iterating through the numbers 1…MAX, checking whether each one is a palindrome, and if it is, adding it to the sum. That means you're doing something with MAX numbers, all in all. Rather than checking for palindromic numbers, why not just generate them directly in one base and then check whether they're a palindrome in the other. I.e., instead of of checking 1…MAX, check:
1
11
101, and 111
1001, and 1111
10001, 10101, 11011, and 11111,
and so on, up until the numbers are too big.
This list is all the binary palindromes, and only some of those will be decimal palindromes. If you can generate the binary palindromes using bit-twiddling techniques (so you're actually working with the integers), it's easy to write those to a string, and checking whether a string is a palindrome is probably much faster than checking whether a list is a palindrome.
Are you running these timings in DrRacket by any chance? The IDE slows down things quite a bit, especially if you happen to have debugging and/or profiling turned on, so I'd recommend doing these tests from the command line.
Also, you can usually improve the brute-force approach. For example, you can say here that we only have to consider odd numbers, because even numbers are never a palindrome when expressed as binaries (a trailing 0, but the way you represent them there's never a heading 0). This divides the execution time by 2 regardless of the algorithm.
Your code runs on my laptop in 2.4 seconds. I wrote an alternative version using strings and build-in functions that runs in 0.53 seconds (including Racket startup; execution time in Racket is 0.23 seconds):
#!/usr/bin/racket
#lang racket
(define (is-palindrome? lon)
(let ((lst (string->list lon)))
(equal? lst (reverse lst))))
(define (sum-them max)
(for/sum ((i (in-range 1 max 2))
#:when (and (is-palindrome? (number->string i))
(is-palindrome? (number->string i 2))))
i))
(time (sum-them 1000000))
yields
pu#pumbair: ~/Projects/L-Racket time ./speed3.rkt
cpu time: 233 real time: 233 gc time: 32
872187
real 0m0.533s
user 0m0.472s
sys 0m0.060s
and I'm pretty sure that people with more experience in Racket profiling will come up with faster solutions.
So I could give you the following tips:
Think about how you may improve the brute force approach
Get to know your language better. Some constructs are faster than others for no apparent reason
see http://docs.racket-lang.org/guide/performance.html and http://jeapostrophe.github.io/2013-08-19-reverse-post.html
use parallelism when applicable
Get used to the Racket profiler
N.B. Your 10->bin function returns #f for the value 0, I guess it should return '(0).
Related
I am studying SICP and wrote two procedures to compute the sum of 1/n^2, the first generating a recursive process and the second generating an iterative process :
(define (sum-rec a b)
(if (> a b)
0
(exact->inexact (+ (/ 1 (* a a)) (sum-rec (1+ a) b)))))
(define (sum-it a b)
(define (sum_iter a tot)
(if (> a b)
tot
(sum_iter (1+ a) (+ (/ 1 (* a a)) tot))))
(exact->inexact (sum_iter a 0)))
I tested that both procedures give exactly the same results when called with small values of b, and that the result is approaching $pi^2/6$ as b gets larger, as expected.
But surprisingly, calling (sum-rec 1 250000) is almost instantaneous whereas calling (sum-it 1 250000) takes forever.
Is there an explanation for that?
As was mentioned in the comments, sum-it in its present form is adding numbers using exact arithmetic, which is slower than the inexact arithmetic being used in sum-rec. To do an equivalent comparison, this is how you should implement it:
(define (sum-it a b)
(define (sum_iter a tot)
(if (> a b)
tot
(sum_iter (1+ a) (+ (/ 1.0 (* a a)) tot))))
(sum_iter a 0))
Notice that replacing the 1 with a 1.0 forces the interpreter to use inexact arithmetic. Now this will return immediately:
(sum-it 1 250000)
=> 1.6449300668562465
You can reframe both of these versions so that they do exact or inexact arithmetic appropriately, simply by controlling what value they use for zero and relying on the contagion rules. These two are in Racket, which doesn't have 1+ by default but does have a nice syntax for optional arguments with defaults:
(define (sum-rec low high (zero 0.0))
(let recurse ([i low])
(if (> i high)
zero
(+ (/ 1 (* i i)) (recurse (+ i 1))))))
(define (sum-iter low high (zero 0.0))
(let iterate ([i low] [accum zero])
(if (> i high)
accum
(iterate (+ i 1) (+ (/ 1 (* i i)) accum)))))
The advantage of this is you can see the performance difference easily for both versions. The disadvantage is that you'd need a really smart compiler to be able to optimize the numerical operations here (I think, even if it knew low and high were machine integers, it would have to infer that zero is going to be some numerical type and generate copies of the function body for all the possible types).
Example
(trace '((1 2 3) (4 5 6) (7 8 9))) should evaluate to 15 (1+5+9).
Hint: use map to obtain the smaller matrix on which trace can be applied recursively. The Matrix should be squared.
i tried to do it but i cant seem to do it, i tried to get the diagonals first.
define (diagonals m n)
(append
(for/list ([slice (in-range 1 (- (* 2 n) 2))])
(let ((z (if (< slice n) 0 (add1 (- slice n)))))
(for/list ([j (in-range z (add1 (- slice z)))])
(vector-ref (vector-ref m (sub1 (- n j))) (- slice j))))
is there any way to solve that question in a very simple recursive way using map.
i tried to solve it like that.
define (nth n l)
(if (or (> n (length l)) (< n 0))
(if (eq? n 0) (car l)
(nth (- n 1) (cdr l)))))
(+ (nth 3 '(3 4 5)) (nth 2 '(3 4 5)) (nth 3 '(3 4 5)))
but it didnt work too.
Although I don't think answering homework questions is a good idea in general, I can't resist this because it is an example of both what is so beautiful about Lisp programs and what can be so horrible.
What is so beautiful:
the recursive algorithm is almost identical to a mathematical proof by induction and it's just so pretty and clever;
What is so horrible:
matrices are not semantically nested lists and it's just this terrible pun to pretend they are (I'm not sure if my use of first & rest makes it better or worse);
it just conses like mad for no good reason at all;
I'm pretty sure its time complexity is n^2 when it could be n.
Of course Lisp programs do not have to be horrible in this way.
To compute the trace of a matrix:
if the matrix is null, then the trace is 0;
otherwise add the top left element to the trace of the matrix you get by removing the first row and column.
Or:
(define (awful-trace m)
(if (null? m)
;; the trace of the null matrix is 0
0
;; otherwise the trace is the top left element added to ...
(+ (first (first m))
;; the trace of the matrix without its first row and column which
;; we get by mapping rest over the rest of the matrix
(awful-trace (map rest (rest m))))))
And you may be tempted to think the following function is better, but it is just as awful in all the ways described above, while being harder to read for anyone not versed in the auxiliary-tail-recursive-function-with-an-accumulator trick:
(define (awful-trace/not-actually-better m)
(define (awful-loop mm tr)
(if (null? mm)
tr
(awful-loop (map rest (rest mm))
(+ tr (first (first mm))))))
(awful-loop m 0))
Try:
(apply + (map (lambda (index row) (list-ref row index))
'(0 1 2)
'((1 2 3) (4 5 6) (7 8 9))))
Of course, turn that into a function.
To handle matrices larger than 3x3, we need more indices.
Since map stops when it traverses the shortest of the lists, the (0 1 2) list can just be padded out by hand as large as ... your best guess at the the largest matrix you think you would ever represent with nested lists in Scheme before you graduate and never see this stuff again.
How to write a scheme program consumes n and sum as parameters, and show all the numbers(from 1 to n) that could sum the sum? Like this:
（find 10 10）
((10)
(9 , 1)
(8 , 2)
(7 , 3)
(7 ,2 , 1)
(6 ,4)
(6 , 3, 1)
(5 , 4 , 1)
(5 , 3 , 2)
(4 ,3 ,2 ,1))
I found one:
(define (find n sum)
(cond ((<= sum 0) (list '()))
((<= n 0) '())
(else (append
(find (- n 1) sum)
(map (lambda (x) (cons n x))
(find (- n 1) (- sum n)))))))
But it's inefficient,and i want a better one. Thank you.
The algorithm you are looking for is known as an integer partition. I have a couple of implementations at my blog.
EDIT: Oscar properly chastized me for my incomplete answer. As penance, I offer this answer, which will hopefully clarify a few things.
I like Oscar's use of streams -- as the author of SRFI-41 I should. But expanding the powerset only to discard most of the results seems a backward way of solving the problem. And I like the simplicity of GoZoner's answer, but not its inefficiency.
Let's start with GoZoner's answer, which I reproduce below with a few small changes:
(define (fs n s)
(if (or (<= n 0) (<= s 0)) (list)
(append (if (= n s) (list (list n))
(map (lambda (xs) (cons n xs))
(fs (- n 1) (- s n))))
(fs (- n 1) s))))
This produces a list of the output sets:
> (fs 10 10)
((10) (9 1) (8 2) (7 3) (7 2 1) (6 4) (6 3 1) (5 4 1) (5 3 2) (4 3 2 1))
A simple variant of that function produces the count instead of a list of sets, which shall be the focus of the rest of this answer:
(define (f n s)
(if (or (<= s 0) (<= n 0)) 0
(+ (if (= n s) 1
(f (- n 1) (- s n)))
(f (- n 1) s))))
And here is a sample run of the function, including timings on my ancient and slow home computer:
> (f 10 10)
10
> (time (f 100 100)
(time (f 100 ...))
no collections
1254 ms elapsed cpu time
1435 ms elapsed real time
0 bytes allocated
444793
That's quite slow; although it is fine for small inputs, it would be intolerable to evaluate (f 1000 1000), as the algorithm is exponential. The problem is the same as with the naive fibonacci algorithm; the same sub-problems are re-computed again and again.
A common solution to that problem is memoization. Fortunately, we are programming in Scheme, which makes it easy to encapsulate memoization in a macro:
(define-syntax define-memoized
(syntax-rules ()
((_ (f args ...) body ...)
(define f
(let ((results (make-hash hash equal? #f 997)))
(lambda (args ...)
(let ((result (results 'lookup (list args ...))))
(or result
(let ((result (begin body ...)))
(results 'insert (list args ...) result)
result)))))))))
We use hash tables from my Standard Prelude and the universal hash function from my blog. Then it is a simple matter to write the memoized version of the function:
(define-memoized (f n s)
(if (or (<= s 0) (<= n 0)) 0
(+ (if (= n s) 1
(f (- n 1) (- s n)))
(f (- n 1) s))))
Isn't that pretty? The only change is the addition of -memoized in the definition of the function; all of the parameters and the body of the function are the same. But the performance improves greatly:
> (time (f 100 100))
(time (f 100 ...))
no collections
62 ms elapsed cpu time
104 ms elapsed real time
1028376 bytes allocated
444793
That's an order-of-magnitude improvement with virtually no effort.
But that's not all. Since we know that the problem has "optimal substructure" we can use dynamic programming. Memoization works top-down, and must suspend the current level of recursion, compute (either directly or by lookup) the lower-level solution, then resume computation in the current level of recursion. Dynamic programming, on the other hand, works bottom-up, so sub-solutions are always available when they are needed. Here's the dynamic programming version of our function:
(define (f n s)
(let ((fs (make-matrix (+ n 1) (+ s 1) 0)))
(do ((i 1 (+ i 1))) ((< n i))
(do ((j 1 (+ j 1))) ((< s j))
(matrix-set! fs i j
(+ (if (= i j)
1
(matrix-ref fs (- i 1) (max (- j i) 0)))
(matrix-ref fs (- i 1) j)))))
(matrix-ref fs n s)))
We used the matrix functions of my Standard Prelude. That's more work than just adding -memoized to an existing function, but the payoff is another order-of-magnitude reduction in run time:
> (time (f 100 100))
(time (f 100 ...))
no collections
4 ms elapsed cpu time
4 ms elapsed real time
41624 bytes allocated
444793
> (time (f 1000 1000))
(time (f 1000 ...))
3 collections
649 ms elapsed cpu time, including 103 ms collecting
698 ms elapsed real time, including 132 ms collecting
15982928 bytes allocated, including 10846336 bytes reclaimed
8635565795744155161506
We’ve gone from 1254ms to 4ms, which is a rather astonishing range of improvement; the final program is O(ns) in both time and space. You can run the program at http://programmingpraxis.codepad.org/Y70sHPc0, which includes all the library code from my blog.
As a special bonus, here is another version of the define-memoized macro. It uses a-lists rather than hash tables, so it's very much slower than the version given above, but when the underlying computation is time-consuming, and you just want a simple way to improve it, this may be just what you need:
(define-syntax define-memoized
(syntax-rules ()
((define-memoized (f arg ...) body ...)
(define f
(let ((cache (list)))
(lambda (arg ...)
(cond ((assoc `(,arg ...) cache) => cdr)
(else (let ((val (begin body ...)))
(set! cache (cons (cons `(,arg ...) val) cache))
val)))))))))
This is a good use of quasi-quotation and the => operator in a cond clause for those who are just learning Scheme. I can't remember when I wrote that function -- I've had it laying around for years -- but it has saved me many times when I just needed a quick-and-dirty memoization and didn't care to worry about hash tables and universal hash functions.
This answer will appear tomorrow at my blog. Please drop in and have a look around.
This is similar to, but not exactly like, the integer partition problem or the subset sum problem. It's not the integer partition problem, because an integer partition allows for repeated numbers (here we're only allowing for a single occurrence of each number in the range).
And although it's more similar to the subset sum problem (which can be solved more-or-less efficiently by means of dynamic programming), the solution would need to be adapted to generate all possible subsets of numbers that add to the given number, not just one subset as in the original formulation of that problem. It's possible to implement a dynamic programming solution using Scheme, but it'll be a bit cumbersome, unless a matrix library or something similar is used for implementing a mutable table.
Here's another possible solution, this time generating the power set of the range [1, n] and checking each subset in turn to see if the sum adds to the expected value. It's still a brute-force approach, though:
; helper procedure for generating a list of numbers in the range [start, end]
(define (range start end)
(let loop ((acc '())
(i end))
(if (< i start)
acc
(loop (cons i acc) (sub1 i)))))
; helper procedure for generating the power set of a given list
(define (powerset set)
(if (null? set)
'(())
(let ((rest (powerset (cdr set))))
(append (map (lambda (element) (cons (car set) element))
rest)
rest))))
; the solution is simple using the above procedures
(define (find n sum)
(filter (lambda (s) (= sum (apply + s)))
(powerset (range 1 n))))
; test it, it works!
(find 10 10)
=> '((1 2 3 4) (1 2 7) (1 3 6) (1 4 5) (1 9) (2 3 5) (2 8) (3 7) (4 6) (10))
UPDATE
The previous solution will produce correct results, but it's inefficient in memory usage because it generates the whole list of the power set, even though we're interested only in some of the subsets. In Racket Scheme we can do a lot better and generate only the values as needed if we use lazy sequences, like this (but be aware - the first solution is still faster!):
; it's the same power set algorithm, but using lazy streams
(define (powerset set)
(if (stream-empty? set)
(stream '())
(let ((rest (powerset (stream-rest set))))
(stream-append
(stream-map (lambda (e) (cons (stream-first set) e))
rest)
rest))))
; same algorithm as before, but using lazy streams
(define (find n sum)
(stream-filter (lambda (s) (= sum (apply + s)))
(powerset (in-range 1 (add1 n)))))
; convert the resulting stream into a list, for displaying purposes
(stream->list (find 10 10))
=> '((1 2 3 4) (1 2 7) (1 3 6) (1 4 5) (1 9) (2 3 5) (2 8) (3 7) (4 6) (10))
Your solution is generally correct except you don't handle the (= n s) case. Here is a solution:
(define (find n s)
(cond ((or (<= s 0) (<= n 0)) '())
(else (append (if (= n s)
(list (list n))
(map (lambda (rest) (cons n rest))
(find (- n 1) (- s n))))
(find (- n 1) s)))))
> (find 10 10)
((10) (9 1) (8 2) (7 3) (7 2 1) (6 4) (6 3 1) (5 4 1) (5 3 2) (4 3 2 1))
I wouldn't claim this as particularly efficient - it is not tail recursive nor does it memoize results. Here is a performance result:
> (time (length (find 100 100)))
running stats for (length (find 100 100)):
10 collections
766 ms elapsed cpu time, including 263 ms collecting
770 ms elapsed real time, including 263 ms collecting
345788912 bytes allocated
444793
>
I want to use the Scheme language to create a special list with high efficiency. E.g.:
Function name: make-list
parameter: max
(make-list max) -> (1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... max)
I can complete this task by using recursion method.
#lang racket
(define (make-list max)
(define lst '())
(define count 1)
(make-list-helper lst max count))
(define (make-list-helper lst max count)
(cond
[(> count max) lst]
[else
(set! lst (append lst (list count)))
(make-list-helper lst max (add1 count)]))
However, this method can be considered to be low. I have no idea how to improve its efficiency of making a list. Can anybody help me out?
The key principle is to avoid Schlemiel the Painter's algorithm, which you don't: using append repeatedly takes more and more as the list becomes longer. Prepending the element is O(1), while appending is O(length of list); so make the innermost make-list-helper return a singular list (max), and use cons to prepend elements on recursion.
(I would prefer iterative solution, but I'm a common lisper, so I'd better avoid insisting on anything for scheme).
No code included to avoid spoiling you the fun of learning.
(define (make-list max)
(let f ((i max)(a '()))
(if (zero? i)
a
(f (- i 1) (cons i a)))))
This seems to be a simple exercise for iteration.
The above is as simple as it gets, and you will use it every where in Scheme.
Make sure you understand how the entire snippet works.
Another definition of "efficiency" might be: writing the procedure with the least amount of code. With that in mind, the shortest solution for the question would be to use an existing procedure to solve the problem; for example if max = 10:
(define (make-list max-val)
(build-list max-val add1))
(make-list 10)
=> '(1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10)
The above makes use of the build-list procedure that's part of Racket:
Creates a list of n elements by applying proc to the integers from 0 to (sub1 n) in order. If lst is the resulting list, then (list-ref lst i) is the value produced by (proc i).
Yet another option, also for Racket, would be to use iterations and comprehensions:
(define (make-list max-val)
(for/list ([i (in-range 1 (add1 max-val))]) i))
(make-list 10)
=> '(1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10)
Either way, given that the procedures are part of the language's core libraries, you can be sure that their performance is quite good, no need to worry about that unless a profiler indicates that they're a bottleneck.
(define (checksum-2 ls)
(if (null? ls)
0
(let ([n 0])
(+ (+ n 1))(* n (car ls))(checksum-2 (cdr ls)))))
Ok, I have this code, its suppose to, if I wrote it right, the number (n) should increase by one every time it goes through the list, so n (in reality) should be like 1 2 3 4, but I want n to be multiplied by the car of the list.
Everything loads, but when the answer is returned I get 0.
Thanks!
If you format your code differently, you might have an easier time seeing what is going on:
(define (checksum-2 ls)
(if (null? ls)
0
(let ([n 0])
(+ (+ n 1))
(* n (car ls))
(checksum-2 (cdr ls)))))
Inside the let form, the expressions are evaluated in sequence but you're not using the results for any of them (except the last one). The results of the addition and multiplication are simply discarded.
What you need to do in this case is define a new helper function that uses an accumulator and performs the recursive call. I'm going to guess this is homework or a learning exercise, so I'm not going to give away the complete answer.
UPDATE: As a demonstration of the sort of thing you might need to do, here is a similar function in Scheme to sum the integers from 1 to n:
(define (sum n)
(define (sum-helper n a)
(if (<= n 0)
a
(sum-helper (- n 1) (+ a n))))
(sum-helper n 0))
You should be able to use a similar framework to implement your checksum-2 function.