Related
I have come up with divide and conquer algorithm for this. Just wanted to know if this would work or not?
First mid is calculated from the integer range i.e. (0+(1<<32-1))>>1 and then this idea is applied: range of number from start to mid or from mid to end will always be less than the numbers we are going to consider as we are considering billion numbers and there will definitely some numbers which are going to be repeated as the range of 32bit integer is much smaller compare to billion numbers.
def get_duplicate(input, start, end):
while True:
mid = (start >> 1) + end - (end >> 1)
less_to_mid = 0
more_to_mid = 0
equal_to_mid = 0
for data in input:
data = int(data, 16)
if data < mid:
less_to_mid += 1
elif data == mid:
equal_to_mid += 1
else:
more_to_mid += 1
if equal_to_mid > 1:
return mid
elif mid-start < less_to_mid:
end = mid-1
elif end-mid < more_to_mid:
start = mid+1
with open("codes\output.txt", 'r+') as f:
content = f.read().split()
print(get_duplicate(content, 0, 1<<32-1))
I know we can use bit array but I just want to get your views on this solution and if implementation is buggy.
Your method is OK. But you will probably need to read the input many times to find the answer.
Here is a variant, which allows you to find a duplicate with few memory, but you only need to read the input twice.
Initialize an array A[65536] of integers to zero.
Read the numbers one by one. Every time a number x is read, add 1 to A[x mod 65536].
When the reading ends, there will be at least one i such that A[i] is strictly bigger than 65536. This is because 65536 * 63356 < 4.3 billion. Let us say A[i0] is bigger than 65536.
Clear the array A to zero.
Read the numbers again, but this time, only look at those numbers x such that x mod 65536 = i0. For every such x, add 1 to A[x / 65536].
When the reading ends, there will be at least one j such that A[j] is strictly bigger than 1. Then the number 65536 * j + i0 is the final answer.
2^32 bits memory is nothing special for the modern systems. So you have to use bitset, this data structure needs only a bit per number and all modern languages have an implementation. Here is the idea - you just remember if a number has been already seen:
void print_twice_seen (Iterator &it)//iterates through all numbers
{
std::bitset< (1L<<32) > seen;//bitset for 2^32 elements, assume 64bit system
while(it.hasNext()){
unsigned int val=it.next();//return current element and move the iterator
if(seen[val])
std::cout<<"Seen at least twice: "<<val<<std::endl;
else
seen.set(val, true);//remember as seen
}
}
Let me be clear at start that this is a contrived example and not a real world problem.
If I have a problem of creating a random number between 0 to 10. I do this 11 times making sure that a previously occurred number is not drawn again, if I get a repeated number,
I create another random number again to make sure it has not be seen earlier. So essentially I get a a sequence of unique numbers from 0 - 10 in a random order
e.g. 3 1 2 0 5 9 4 8 10 6 7 and so on
Now to come up with logic to make sure that the random numbers are unique and not one which we have drawn before, we could use many approaches
Use C++ std::bitset and set the bit corresponding to the index equal to value of each random no. and check it next time when a new random number is drawn.
Or
Use a std::map<int,int> to count the number of times or even simple C array with some sentinel values stored in that array to indicate if that number has occurred or not.
If I have to avoid these methods above and use some mathematical/logical/bitwise operation to find whether a random number has been draw before or not, is there a way?
You don't want to do it the way you suggest. Consider what happens when you have already selected 10 of the 11 items; your random number generator will cycle until it finds the missing number, which might be never, depending on your random number generator.
A better solution is to create a list of numbers 0 to 10 in order, then shuffle the list into a random order. The normal algorithm for doing this is due to Knuth, Fisher and Yates: starting at the first element, swap each element with an element at a location greater than the current element in the array.
function shuffle(a, n)
for i from n-1 to 1 step -1
j = randint(i)
swap(a[i], a[j])
We assume an array with indices 0 to n-1, and a randint function that sets j to the range 0 <= j <= i.
Use an array and add all possible values to it. Then pick one out of the array and remove it. Next time, pick again until the array is empty.
Yes, there is a mathematical way to do it, but it is a bit expansive.
have an array: primes[] where primes[i] = the i'th prime number. So its beginning will be [2,3,5,7,11,...].
Also store a number mult Now, once you draw a number (let it be i) you check if mult % primes[i] == 0, if it is - the number was drawn before, if it wasn't - then the number was not. chose it and do mult = mult * primes[i].
However, it is expansive because it might require a lot of space for large ranges (the possible values of mult increases exponentially
(This is a nice mathematical approach, because we actually look at a set of primes p_i, the array of primes is only the implementation to the abstract set of primes).
A bit manipulation alternative for small values is using an int or long as a bitset.
With this approach, to check a candidate i is not in the set you only need to check:
if (pow(2,i) & set == 0) // not in the set
else //already in the set
To enter an element i to the set:
set = set | pow(2,i)
A better approach will be to populate a list with all the numbers, shuffle it with fisher-yates shuffle, and iterate it for generating new random numbers.
If I have to avoid these methods above and use some
mathematical/logical/bitwise operation to find whether a random number
has been draw before or not, is there a way?
Subject to your contrived constraints yes, you can imitate a small bitset using bitwise operations:
You can choose different integer types on the right according to what size you need.
bitset code bitwise code
std::bitset<32> x; unsigned long x = 0;
if (x[i]) { ... } if (x & (1UL << i)) { ... }
// assuming v is 0 or 1
x[i] = v; x = (x & ~(1UL << i)) | ((unsigned long)v << i);
x[i] = true; x |= (1UL << i);
x[i] = false; x &= ~(1UL << i);
For a larger set (beyond the size in bits of unsigned long long), you will need an array of your chosen integer type. Divide the index by the width of each value to know what index to look up in the array, and use the modulus for the bit shifts. This is basically what bitset does.
I'm assuming that the various answers that tell you how best to shuffle 10 numbers are missing the point entirely: that your contrived constraints are there because you do not in fact want or need to know how best to shuffle 10 numbers :-)
Keep a variable too map the drawn numbers. The i'th bit of that variable will be 1 if the number was drawn before:
int mapNumbers = 0;
int generateRand() {
if (mapNumbers & ((1 << 11) - 1) == ((1 << 11) - 1)) return; // return if all numbers have been generated
int x;
do {
x = newVal();
} while (!x & mapNumbers);
mapNumbers |= (1 << x);
return x;
}
On Page 140 of Programming Pearls, 2nd Edition, Jon proposed an implementation of sets with bit vectors.
We'll turn now to two final structures that exploit the fact that our sets represent integers. Bit vectors are an old friend from Column 1. Here are their private data and functions:
enum { BITSPERWORD = 32, SHIFT = 5, MASK = 0x1F };
int n, hi, *x;
void set(int i) { x[i>>SHIFT] |= (1<<(i & MASK)); }
void clr(int i) { x[i>>SHIFT] &= ~(1<<(i & MASK)); }
int test(int i) { return x[i>>SHIFT] &= (1<<(i & MASK)); }
As I gathered, the central idea of a bit vector to represent an integer set, as described in Column 1, is that the i-th bit is turned on if and only if the integer i is in the set.
But I am really at a loss at the algorithms involved in the above three functions. And the book doesn't give an explanation.
I can only get that i & MASK is to get the lower 5 bits of i, while i>>SHIFT is to move i 5 bits toward the right.
Anybody would elaborate more on these algorithms? Bit operations always seem a myth to me, :(
Bit Fields and You
I'll use a simple example to explain the basics. Say you have an unsigned integer with four bits:
[0][0][0][0] = 0
You can represent any number here from 0 to 15 by converting it to base 2. Say we have the right end be the smallest:
[0][1][0][1] = 5
So the first bit adds 1 to the total, the second adds 2, the third adds 4, and the fourth adds 8. For example, here's 8:
[1][0][0][0] = 8
So What?
Say you want to represent a binary state in an application-- if some option is enabled, if you should draw some element, and so on. You probably don't want to use an entire integer for each one of these- it'd be using a 32 bit integer to store one bit of information. Or, to continue our example in four bits:
[0][0][0][1] = 1 = ON
[0][0][0][0] = 0 = OFF //what a huge waste of space!
(Of course, the problem is more pronounced in real life since 32-bit integers look like this:
[0][0][0][0][0][0][0][0][0][0][0][0][0][0][0][0][0][0][0][0][0][0][0][0][0][0][0][0][0][0][0][0] = 0
The answer to this is to use a bit field. We have a collection of properties (usually related ones) which we will flip on and off using bit operations. So, say, you might have 4 different lights on a piece of hardware that you want to be on or off.
3 2 1 0
[0][0][0][0] = 0
(Why do we start with light 0? I'll explain this in a second.)
Note that this is an integer, and is stored as an integer, but is used to represent multiple states for multiple objects. Crazy! Say we turn lights 2 and 1 on:
3 2 1 0
[0][1][1][0] = 6
The important thing you should note here: There's probably no obvious reason why lights 2 and 1 being on should equal six, and it may not be obvious how we would do anything with this scheme of information storage. It doesn't look more obvious if you add more bits:
3 2 1 0
[1][1][1][0] = 0xE \\what?
Why do we care about this? Do we have exactly one state for each number between 0 and 15?How are we going to manage this without some insane series of switch statements? Ugh...
The Light at the End
So if you've worked with binary arithmetic a bit before, you might realize that the relationship between the numbers on the left and the numbers on the right is, of course, base 2. That is:
1*(23) + 1*(22) + 1*(21) +0 *(20) = 0xE
So each light is present in the exponent of each term of the equation. If the light is on, there is a 1 next to its term- if the light is off, there is a zero. Take the time to convince yourself that there is exactly one integer between 0 and 15 that corresponds to each state in this numbering scheme.
Bit operators
Now that we have this done, let's take a second to see what bitshifting does to integers in this setup.
[0][0][0][1] = 1
When you shift bits to the left or the right in an integer, it literally moves the bits left and right. (Note: I 100% disavow this explanation for negative numbers! There be dragons!)
1<<2 = 4
[0][1][0][0] = 4
4>>1 = 2
[0][0][1][0] = 2
You will encounter similar behavior when shifting numbers represented with more than one bit. Also, it shouldn't be hard to convince yourself that x>>0 or x<<0 is just x. Doesn't shift anywhere.
This probably explains the naming scheme of the Shift operators to anyone who wasn't familiar with them.
Bitwise operations
This representation of numbers in binary can also be used to shed some light on the operations of bitwise operators on integers. Each bit in the first number is xor-ed, and-ed, or or-ed with its fellow number. Take a second to venture to wikipedia and familiarize yourself with the function of these Boolean operators - I'll explain how they function on numbers but I don't want to rehash the general idea in great detail.
...
Welcome back! Let's start by examining the effect of the OR (|) operator on two integers, stored in four bit.
OR OPERATOR ON:
[1][0][0][1] = 0x9
[1][1][0][0] = 0xC
________________
[1][1][0][1] = 0xD
Tough! This is a close analogue to the truth table for the boolean OR operator. Notice that each column ignores the adjacent columns and simply fills in the result column with the result of the first bit and the second bit OR'd together. Note also that the value of anything or'd with 1 is 1 in that particular column. Anything or'd with zero remains the same.
The table for AND (&) is interesting, though somewhat inverted:
AND OPERATOR ON:
[1][0][0][1] = 0x9
[1][1][0][0] = 0xC
________________
[1][0][0][0] = 0x8
In this case we do the same thing- we perform the AND operation with each bit in a column and put the result in that bit. No column cares about any other column.
Important lesson about this, which I invite you to verify by using the diagram above: anything AND-ed with zero is zero. Also, equally important- nothing happens to numbers that are AND-ed with one. They stay the same.
The final table, XOR, has behavior which I hope you all find predictable by now.
XOR OPERATOR ON:
[1][0][0][1] = 0x9
[1][1][0][0] = 0xC
________________
[0][1][0][1] = 0x5
Each bit is being XOR'd with its column, yadda yadda, and so on. But look closely at the first row and the second row. Which bits changed? (Half of them.) Which bits stayed the same? (No points for answering this one.)
The bit in the first row is being changed in the result if (and only if) the bit in the second row is 1!
The one lightbulb example!
So now we have an interesting set of tools we can use to flip individual bits. Let's go back to the lightbulb example and focus only on the first lightbulb.
0
[?] \\We don't know if it's one or zero while coding
We know that we have an operation that can always make this bit equal to one- the OR 1 operator.
0|1 = 1
1|1 = 1
So, ignoring the rest of the bulbs, we could do this
4_bit_lightbulb_integer |= 1;
and know for sure that we did nothing but set the first lightbulb to ON.
3 2 1 0
[0][0][0][?] = 0 or 1? \\4_bit_lightbulb_integer
[0][0][0][1] = 1
________________
[0][0][0][1] = 0x1
Similarly, we can AND the number with zero. Well- not quite zero- we don't want to affect the state of the other bits, so we will fill them in with ones.
I'll use the unary (one-argument) operator for bit negation. The ~ (NOT) bitwise operator flips all of the bits in its argument. ~(0X1):
[0][0][0][1] = 0x1
________________
[1][1][1][0] = 0xE
We will use this in conjunction with the AND bit below.
Let's do 4_bit_lightbulb_integer & 0xE
3 2 1 0
[0][1][0][?] = 4 or 5? \\4_bit_lightbulb_integer
[1][1][1][0] = 0xE
________________
[0][1][0][0] = 0x4
We're seeing a lot of integers on the right-hand-side which don't have any immediate relevance. You should get used to this if you deal with bit fields a lot. Look at the left-hand side. The bit on the right is always zero and the other bits are unchanged. We can turn off light 0 and ignore everything else!
Finally, you can use the XOR bit to flip the first bit selectively!
3 2 1 0
[0][1][0][?] = 4 or 5? \\4_bit_lightbulb_integer
[0][0][0][1] = 0x1
________________
[0][1][0][*] = 4 or 5?
We don't actually know what the value of * is now- just that flipped from whatever ? was.
Combining Bit Shifting and Bitwise operations
The interesting fact about these two operations is when taken together they allow you to manipulate selective bits.
[0][0][0][1] = 1 = 1<<0
[0][0][1][0] = 2 = 1<<1
[0][1][0][0] = 4 = 1<<2
[1][0][0][0] = 8 = 1<<3
Hmm. Interesting. I'll mention the negation operator here (~) as it's used in a similar way to produce the needed bit values for ANDing stuff in bit fields.
[1][1][1][0] = 0xE = ~(1<<0)
[1][1][0][1] = 0xD = ~(1<<1)
[1][0][1][1] = 0xB = ~(1<<2)
[0][1][1][1] = 0X7 = ~(1<<3)
Are you seeing an interesting relationship between the shift value and the corresponding lightbulb position of the shifted bit?
The canonical bitshift operators
As alluded to above, we have an interesting, generic method for turning on and off specific lights with the bit-shifters above.
To turn on a bulb, we generate the 1 in the right position using bit shifting, and then OR it with the current lightbulb positions. Say we want to turn on light 3, and ignore everything else. We need to get a bit shifting operation that ORs
3 2 1 0
[?][?][?][?] \\all we know about these values at compile time is where they are!
and 0x8
[1][0][0][0] = 0x8
Which is easy, thanks to bitshifting! We'll pick the number of the light and switch the value over:
1<<3 = 0x8
and then:
4_bit_lightbulb_integer |= 0x8;
3 2 1 0
[1][?][?][?] \\the ? marks have not changed!
And we can guarantee that the bit for the 3rd lightbulb is set to 1 and that nothing else has changed.
Clearing a bit works similarly- we'll use the negated bits table above to, say, clear light 2.
~(1<<2) = 0xB = [1][0][1][1]
4_bit_lightbulb_integer & 0xB:
3 2 1 0
[?][?][?][?]
[1][0][1][1]
____________
[?][0][?][?]
The XOR method of flipping bits is the same idea as the OR one.
So the canonical methods of bit switching are this:
Turn on the light i:
4_bit_lightbulb_integer|=(1<<i)
Turn off light i:
4_bit_lightbulb_integer&=~(1<<i)
Flip light i:
4_bit_lightbulb_integer^=(1<<i)
Wait, how do I read these?
In order to check a bit we can simply zero out all of the bits except for the one we care about. We'll then check to see if the resulting value is greater than zero- since this is the only value that could possibly be nonzero, it will make the entire integer nonzero if and only if it is nonzero. For example, to check bit 2:
1<<2:
[0][1][0][0]
4_bit_lightbulb_integer:
[?][?][?][?]
1<<2 & 4_bit_lightbulb_integer:
[0][?][0][0]
Remember from the previous examples that the value of ? didn't change. Remember also that anything AND 0 is 0. So, we can say for sure that if this value is greater than zero, the switch at position 2 is true and the lightbulb is zero. Similarly, if the value is off, the value of the entire thing will be zero.
(You can alternately shift the entire value of 4_bit_lightbulb_integer over by i bits and AND it with 1. I don't remember off the top of my head if one is faster than the other but I doubt it.)
So the canonical checking function:
Check if bit i is on:
if (4_bit_lightbulb_integer & 1<<i) {
\\do whatever
}
The specifics
Now that we have a complete set of tools for bitwise operations, we can look at the specific example here. This is basically the same idea- except a much more concise and powerful way of executing it. Let's look at this function:
void set(int i) { x[i>>SHIFT] |= (1<<(i & MASK)); }
From the canonical implementation I'm going to make a guess that this is trying to set some bits to 1! Let's take an integer and look at what's going on here if i feed the value 0x32 (50 in decimal) into i:
x[0x32>>5] |= (1<<(0x32 & 0x1f))
Well, that's a mess.. let's dissect this operation on the right. For convenience, pretend there are 24 more irrelevant zeros, since these are both 32 bit integers.
...[0][0][0][1][1][1][1][1] = 0x1F
...[0][0][1][1][0][0][1][0] = 0x32
________________________
...[0][0][0][1][0][0][1][0] = 0x12
It looks like everything is being cut off at the boundary on top where 1s turn into zeros. This technique is called Bit Masking. Interestingly, the boundary here restricts the resulting values to be between 0 and 31... Which is exactly the number of bit positions we have for a 32 bit integer!
x[0x32>>5] |= (1<<(0x12))
Let's look at the other half.
...[0][0][1][1][0][0][1][0] = 0x32
Shift five bits to the right:
...[0][0][0][0][0][0][0][1] = 0x01
Note that this transformation exactly destroyed all information from the first part of the function- we have 32-5 = 27 remaining bits which could be nonzero. This indicates which of 227 integers in the array of integers are selected. So the simplified equation is now:
x[1] |= (1<<0x12)
This just looks like the canonical bit-setting operation! We've just chosen
So the idea is to use the first 27 bits to pick an integer to shift and the last five bits indicate which bit of the 32 in that integer to shift.
The key to understanding what's going on is to recognize that BITSPERWORD = 2SHIFT. Thus, x[i>>SHIFT] finds which 32-bit element of the array x has the bit corresponding to i. (By shifting i 5 bits to the right, you're simply dividing by 32.) Once you have located the correct element of x, the lower 5 bits of i can then be used to find which particular bit of x[i>>SHIFT] corresponds to i. That's what i & MASK does; by shifting 1 by that number of bits, you move the bit corresponding to 1 to the exact position within x[i>>SHIFT] that corresponds to the ith bit in x.
Here's a bit more of an explanation:
Imagine that we want capacity for N bits in our bit vector. Since each int holds 32 bits, we will need (N + 31) / 32 int values for our storage (that is, N/32 rounded up). Within each int value, we will adopt the convention that bits are ordered from least significant to most significant. We will also adopt the convention that the first 32 bits of our vector are in x[0], the next 32 bits are in x[1], and so forth. Here's the memory layout we are using (showing the bit index in our bit vector corresponding to each bit of memory):
+----+----+-------+----+----+----+
x[0]: | 31 | 30 | . . . | 02 | 01 | 00 |
+----+----+-------+----+----+----+
x[1]: | 63 | 62 | . . . | 34 | 33 | 32 |
+----+----+-------+----+----+----+
etc.
Our first step is to allocate the necessary storage capacity:
x = new int[(N + BITSPERWORD - 1) >> SHIFT]
(We could make provision for dynamically expanding this storage, but that would just add complexity to the explanation.)
Now suppose we want to access bit i (either to set it, clear it, or just to know its current value). We need to first figure out which element of x to use. Since there are 32 bits per int value, this is easy:
subscript for x = i / 32
Making use of the enum constants, the x element we want is:
x[i >> SHIFT]
(Think of this as a 32-bit-wide window into our N-bit vector.) Now we have to find the specific bit corresponding to i. Looking at the memory layout, it's not hard to figure out that the first (rightmost) bit in the window corresponds to bit index 32 * (i >> SHIFT). (The window starts afteri >> SHIFT slots in x, and each slot has 32 bits.) Since that's the first bit in the window (position 0), then the bit we're interested in is is at position
i - (32 * (i >> SHIFT))
in the windows. With a little experimenting, you can convince yourself that this expression is always equal to i % 32 (actually, that's one definition of the mod operator) which, in turn, is always equal to i & MASK. Since this last expression is the fastest way to calculate what we want, that's what we'll use.
From here, the rest is pretty simple. We start with a single bit in the least-significant position of the window (that is, the constant 1), and move it to the left by i & MASK bits to get it to the position in the window corresponding to bit i in the bit vector. This is where the expression
1 << (i & MASK)
comes from. With the bit now moved to where we want it, we can use this as a mask to set, clear, or query the value of the bit at that position in x[i>>SHIFT] and we know that we're actually setting, clearing, or querying the value of bit i in our bit vector.
If you store your bits in an array of n words you can imagine them to be layed out as a matrix with n rows and 32 columns (BITSPERWORD):
3 0
1 0
0 xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx
1 xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx
2 xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx
....
n xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx
To get the k-th bit you divide k by 32. The (integer) result will give you the row (word) the bit is in, the reminder will give you which bit is within the word.
Dividing by 2^p can be done simply by shifting p postions to the right. The reminder can be obtained by getting the p rightmost bits (i.e the bitwise AND with (2^p - 1)).
In C terms:
#define div32(k) ((k) >> 5)
#define mod32(k) ((k) & 31)
#define word_the_bit_is_in(k) div32(k)
#define bit_within_word(k) mod32(k)
Hope it helps.
We have two N-bit numbers (0< N< 100000). We have to perform q queries (0< q<500000) over these numbers. The query can be of following three types:
set_a idx x: Set A[idx] to x, where 0 <= idx < N, where A[idx] is idx'th least significant bit of A.
set_b idx x: Set B[idx] to x, where 0 <= idx < N.
get_c idx: Print C[idx], where C=A+B, and 0<=idx
Now, I have optimized the code to the best extent I can.
First, I tried with an int array for a, b and c. For every update, I calculate c and return the ith bit when queried. It was damn slow. Cleared 4/11 test cases only.
I moved over to using boolean array. It was around 2 times faster than int array approach. Cleared 7/11 testcases.
Next, I figured out that I need not calculate c for calculating idx th bit of A+B. I will just scan A and B towards right from idx until I find either a[i]=b[i]=0 or a[i]=b[i]=1. If a[i]=b[i]=0, then I just add up towards left to idx th bit starting with initial carry=0. And if a[i]=b[i]=1, then I just add up towards left to idx th bit starting with initial carry=1.
This was faster but cleared only 8/11 testcases.
Then, I figured out once, I get to the position i, a[i]=b[i]=0 or a[i]=b[i]=1, then I need not add up towards idx th position. If a[i]=b[i]=0, then answer is (a[idx]+b[idx])%2 and if a[i]=b[i]=1, then the answer is (a[idx]+b[idx]+1)%2. It was around 40% faster but still cleared only 8/11 testcases.
Now my question is how do get down those 3 'hard' testcases? I dont know what they are but the program is taking >3 sec to solve the problem.
Here is the code: http://ideone.com/LopZf
One possible optimization is to replace
(a[pos]+b[pos]+carry)%2
with
a[pos]^b[pos]^carry
The XOR operator (^) performs addition modulo 2, making the potentially expensive mod operation (%) unnecessary. Depending on the language and compiler, the compiler may make optimizations for you when doing a mod with a power of 2. But since you are micro-optimizing it is a simple change to make that removes dependence on that optimization being made for you behind the scenes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclusive_or
This is just one suggestion that is simple to make. As others have suggested, using packed ints to represent your bit array will likely also improve what is probably the worst case test for your code. That would be the get_c function of the most significant bit, with either A or B (but not both) being 1 for all the other positions, requiring a scan of every bit position to the least significant bit to determine carry. If you were using packed ints for your bits, there would only be approximately 1/32 as many operations neccessary (assuming 32 bit ints). Using packed ints however would be a somewhat more complicated than your use of a simple boolean array (which really is likely just an array of bytes).
C/C++ Bit Array or Bit Vector
Convert bit array to uint or similar packed value
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit_array
There are lots of other examples on Stackoverflow and the net for using ints as if they were bit arrays.
Here is a solution that looks a bit like your algorithm. I demonstrate it with bytes, but of course you can easily optimize the algorithm using 32 bit words (I suppose your machine has 64 bits arithmetic nowadays).
void setbit( unsigned char*x,unsigned int idx,unsigned int bit)
{
unsigned int digitIndex = idx>>3;
unsigned int bitIndex = idx & 7;
if( ((x[digitIndex]>>bitIndex)&1) ^ bit) x[digitIndex]^=(1u<<bitIndex);
}
unsigned int getbit(unsigned char *a,unsigned char *b,unsigned int idx)
{
unsigned int digitIndex = idx>>3;
unsigned int bitIndex = idx & 7;
unsigned int c = a[digitIndex]+b[digitIndex];
unsigned int bit = (c>>bitIndex) & 1;
/* a zero bit on the right will absorb a carry, let's check if any */
if( (c^(c+1))>>bitIndex )
{
/* none, we must check if there's a carry propagating from the right digits */
for(;digitIndex-- > 0;)
{
c=a[digitIndex]+b[digitIndex];
if( c > 255 ) return bit^1; /* yes, a carry */
if( c < 255 ) return bit; /* no carry possible, a zero bit will absorb it */
}
}
return bit;
}
If you find anything cryptic, just ask.
Edit: oops, I inverted the zero bit condition...
int x = n / 3; // <-- make this faster
// for instance
int a = n * 3; // <-- normal integer multiplication
int b = (n << 1) + n; // <-- potentially faster multiplication
The guy who said "leave it to the compiler" was right, but I don't have the "reputation" to mod him up or comment. I asked gcc to compile int test(int a) { return a / 3; } for an ix86 and then disassembled the output. Just for academic interest, what it's doing is roughly multiplying by 0x55555556 and then taking the top 32 bits of the 64 bit result of that. You can demonstrate this to yourself with eg:
$ ruby -e 'puts(60000 * 0x55555556 >> 32)'
20000
$ ruby -e 'puts(72 * 0x55555556 >> 32)'
24
$
The wikipedia page on Montgomery division is hard to read but fortunately the compiler guys have done it so you don't have to.
This is the fastest as the compiler will optimize it if it can depending on the output processor.
int a;
int b;
a = some value;
b = a / 3;
There is a faster way to do it if you know the ranges of the values, for example, if you are dividing a signed integer by 3 and you know the range of the value to be divided is 0 to 768, then you can multiply it by a factor and shift it to the left by a power of 2 to that factor divided by 3.
eg.
Range 0 -> 768
you could use shifting of 10 bits, which multiplying by 1024, you want to divide by 3 so your multiplier should be 1024 / 3 = 341,
so you can now use (x * 341) >> 10
(Make sure the shift is a signed shift if using signed integers), also make sure the shift is an actually shift and not a bit ROLL
This will effectively divide the value 3, and will run at about 1.6 times the speed as a natural divide by 3 on a standard x86 / x64 CPU.
Of course the only reason you can make this optimization when the compiler cant is because the compiler does not know the maximum range of X and therefore cannot make this determination, but you as the programmer can.
Sometime it may even be more beneficial to move the value into a larger value and then do the same thing, ie. if you have an int of full range you could make it an 64-bit value and then do the multiply and shift instead of dividing by 3.
I had to do this recently to speed up image processing, i needed to find the average of 3 color channels, each color channel with a byte range (0 - 255). red green and blue.
At first i just simply used:
avg = (r + g + b) / 3;
(So r + g + b has a maximum of 768 and a minimum of 0, because each channel is a byte 0 - 255)
After millions of iterations the entire operation took 36 milliseconds.
I changed the line to:
avg = (r + g + b) * 341 >> 10;
And that took it down to 22 milliseconds, its amazing what can be done with a little ingenuity.
This speed up occurred in C# even though I had optimisations turned on and was running the program natively without debugging info and not through the IDE.
See How To Divide By 3 for an extended discussion of more efficiently dividing by 3, focused on doing FPGA arithmetic operations.
Also relevant:
Optimizing integer divisions with Multiply Shift in C#
Depending on your platform and depending on your C compiler, a native solution like just using
y = x / 3
Can be fast or it can be awfully slow (even if division is done entirely in hardware, if it is done using a DIV instruction, this instruction is about 3 to 4 times slower than a multiplication on modern CPUs). Very good C compilers with optimization flags turned on may optimize this operation, but if you want to be sure, you are better off optimizing it yourself.
For optimization it is important to have integer numbers of a known size. In C int has no known size (it can vary by platform and compiler!), so you are better using C99 fixed-size integers. The code below assumes that you want to divide an unsigned 32-bit integer by three and that you C compiler knows about 64 bit integer numbers (NOTE: Even on a 32 bit CPU architecture most C compilers can handle 64 bit integers just fine):
static inline uint32_t divby3 (
uint32_t divideMe
) {
return (uint32_t)(((uint64_t)0xAAAAAAABULL * divideMe) >> 33);
}
As crazy as this might sound, but the method above indeed does divide by 3. All it needs for doing so is a single 64 bit multiplication and a shift (like I said, multiplications might be 3 to 4 times faster than divisions on your CPU). In a 64 bit application this code will be a lot faster than in a 32 bit application (in a 32 bit application multiplying two 64 bit numbers take 3 multiplications and 3 additions on 32 bit values) - however, it might be still faster than a division on a 32 bit machine.
On the other hand, if your compiler is a very good one and knows the trick how to optimize integer division by a constant (latest GCC does, I just checked), it will generate the code above anyway (GCC will create exactly this code for "/3" if you enable at least optimization level 1). For other compilers... you cannot rely or expect that it will use tricks like that, even though this method is very well documented and mentioned everywhere on the Internet.
Problem is that it only works for constant numbers, not for variable ones. You always need to know the magic number (here 0xAAAAAAAB) and the correct operations after the multiplication (shifts and/or additions in most cases) and both is different depending on the number you want to divide by and both take too much CPU time to calculate them on the fly (that would be slower than hardware division). However, it's easy for a compiler to calculate these during compile time (where one second more or less compile time plays hardly a role).
For 64 bit numbers:
uint64_t divBy3(uint64_t x)
{
return x*12297829382473034411ULL;
}
However this isn't the truncating integer division you might expect.
It works correctly if the number is already divisible by 3, but it returns a huge number if it isn't.
For example if you run it on for example 11, it returns 6148914691236517209. This looks like a garbage but it's in fact the correct answer: multiply it by 3 and you get back the 11!
If you are looking for the truncating division, then just use the / operator. I highly doubt you can get much faster than that.
Theory:
64 bit unsigned arithmetic is a modulo 2^64 arithmetic.
This means for each integer which is coprime with the 2^64 modulus (essentially all odd numbers) there exists a multiplicative inverse which you can use to multiply with instead of division. This magic number can be obtained by solving the 3*x + 2^64*y = 1 equation using the Extended Euclidean Algorithm.
What if you really don't want to multiply or divide? Here is is an approximation I just invented. It works because (x/3) = (x/4) + (x/12). But since (x/12) = (x/4) / 3 we just have to repeat the process until its good enough.
#include <stdio.h>
void main()
{
int n = 1000;
int a,b;
a = n >> 2;
b = (a >> 2);
a += b;
b = (b >> 2);
a += b;
b = (b >> 2);
a += b;
b = (b >> 2);
a += b;
printf("a=%d\n", a);
}
The result is 330. It could be made more accurate using b = ((b+2)>>2); to account for rounding.
If you are allowed to multiply, just pick a suitable approximation for (1/3), with a power-of-2 divisor. For example, n * (1/3) ~= n * 43 / 128 = (n * 43) >> 7.
This technique is most useful in Indiana.
I don't know if it's faster but if you want to use a bitwise operator to perform binary division you can use the shift and subtract method described at this page:
Set quotient to 0
Align leftmost digits in dividend and divisor
Repeat:
If that portion of the dividend above the divisor is greater than or equal to the divisor:
Then subtract divisor from that portion of the dividend and
Concatentate 1 to the right hand end of the quotient
Else concatentate 0 to the right hand end of the quotient
Shift the divisor one place right
Until dividend is less than the divisor:
quotient is correct, dividend is remainder
STOP
For really large integer division (e.g. numbers bigger than 64bit) you can represent your number as an int[] and perform division quite fast by taking two digits at a time and divide them by 3. The remainder will be part of the next two digits and so forth.
eg. 11004 / 3 you say
11/3 = 3, remaineder = 2 (from 11-3*3)
20/3 = 6, remainder = 2 (from 20-6*3)
20/3 = 6, remainder = 2 (from 20-6*3)
24/3 = 8, remainder = 0
hence the result 3668
internal static List<int> Div3(int[] a)
{
int remainder = 0;
var res = new List<int>();
for (int i = 0; i < a.Length; i++)
{
var val = remainder + a[i];
var div = val/3;
remainder = 10*(val%3);
if (div > 9)
{
res.Add(div/10);
res.Add(div%10);
}
else
res.Add(div);
}
if (res[0] == 0) res.RemoveAt(0);
return res;
}
If you really want to see this article on integer division, but it only has academic merit ... it would be an interesting application that actually needed to perform that benefited from that kind of trick.
Easy computation ... at most n iterations where n is your number of bits:
uint8_t divideby3(uint8_t x)
{
uint8_t answer =0;
do
{
x>>=1;
answer+=x;
x=-x;
}while(x);
return answer;
}
A lookup table approach would also be faster in some architectures.
uint8_t DivBy3LU(uint8_t u8Operand)
{
uint8_t ai8Div3 = [0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, ....];
return ai8Div3[u8Operand];
}