Related
What is the best way to find the period in a repeating list?
For example:
a = {4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2}
has repeat {4, 5, 1, 2, 3} with the remainder {4, 5, 1, 2} matching, but being incomplete.
The algorithm should be fast enough to handle longer cases, like so:
b = RandomInteger[10000, {100}];
a = Join[b, b, b, b, Take[b, 27]]
The algorithm should return $Failed if there is no repeating pattern like above.
Please see the comments interspersed with the code on how it works.
(* True if a has period p *)
testPeriod[p_, a_] := Drop[a, p] === Drop[a, -p]
(* are all the list elements the same? *)
homogeneousQ[list_List] := Length#Tally[list] === 1
homogeneousQ[{}] := Throw[$Failed] (* yes, it's ugly to put this here ... *)
(* auxiliary for findPeriodOfFirstElement[] *)
reduce[a_] := Differences#Flatten#Position[a, First[a], {1}]
(* the first element occurs every ?th position ? *)
findPeriodOfFirstElement[a_] := Module[{nl},
nl = NestWhileList[reduce, reduce[a], ! homogeneousQ[#] &];
Fold[Total#Take[#2, #1] &, 1, Reverse[nl]]
]
(* the period must be a multiple of the period of the first element *)
period[a_] := Catch#With[{fp = findPeriodOfFirstElement[a]},
Do[
If[testPeriod[p, a], Return[p]],
{p, fp, Quotient[Length[a], 2], fp}
]
]
Please ask if findPeriodOfFirstElement[] is not clear. I did this independently (for fun!), but now I see that the principle is the same as in Verbeia's solution, except the problem pointed out by Brett is fixed.
I was testing with
b = RandomInteger[100, {1000}];
a = Flatten[{ConstantArray[b, 1000], Take[b, 27]}];
(Note the low integer values: there will be lots of repeating elements within the same period *)
EDIT: According to Leonid's comment below, another 2-3x speedup (~2.4x on my machine) is possible by using a custom position function, compiled specifically for lists of integers:
(* Leonid's reduce[] *)
myPosition = Compile[
{{lst, _Integer, 1}, {val, _Integer}},
Module[{pos = Table[0, {Length[lst]}], i = 1, ctr = 0},
For[i = 1, i <= Length[lst], i++,
If[lst[[i]] == val, pos[[++ctr]] = i]
];
Take[pos, ctr]
],
CompilationTarget -> "C", RuntimeOptions -> "Speed"
]
reduce[a_] := Differences#myPosition[a, First[a]]
Compiling testPeriod gives a further ~20% speedup in a quick test, but I believe this will depend on the input data:
Clear[testPeriod]
testPeriod =
Compile[{{p, _Integer}, {a, _Integer, 1}},
Drop[a, p] === Drop[a, -p]]
Above methods are better if you have no noise. If your signal is only approximate then Fourier transform methods might be useful. I'll illustrate with a "parametrized" setup wherein the length and number of repetitions of the base signal, the length of the trailing part, and a bound on the noise perturbation are all variables one can play with.
noise = 20;
extra = 40;
baselen = 103;
base = RandomInteger[10000, {baselen}];
repeat = 5;
signal = Flatten[Join[ConstantArray[base, repeat], Take[base, extra]]];
noisysignal = signal + RandomInteger[{-noise, noise}, Length[signal]];
We compute the absolute value of the FFT. We adjoin zeros to both ends. The object will be to threshold by comparing to neighbors.
sigfft = Join[{0.}, Abs[Fourier[noisysignal]], {0}];
Now we create two 0-1 vectors. In one we threshold by making a 1 for each element in the fft that is greater than twice the geometric mean of its two neighbors. In the other we use the average (arithmetic mean) but we lower the size bound to 3/4. This was based on some experimentation. We count the number of 1s in each case. Ideally we'd get 100 for each, as that would be the number of nonzeros in a "perfect" case of no noise and no tail part.
In[419]:=
thresh1 =
Table[If[sigfft[[j]]^2 > 2*sigfft[[j - 1]]*sigfft[[j + 1]], 1,
0], {j, 2, Length[sigfft] - 1}];
count1 = Count[thresh1, 1]
thresh2 =
Table[If[sigfft[[j]] > 3/4*(sigfft[[j - 1]] + sigfft[[j + 1]]), 1,
0], {j, 2, Length[sigfft] - 1}];
count2 = Count[thresh2, 1]
Out[420]= 114
Out[422]= 100
Now we get our best guess as to the value of "repeats", by taking the floor of the total length over the average of our counts.
approxrepeats = Floor[2*Length[signal]/(count1 + count2)]
Out[423]= 5
So we have found that the basic signal is repeated 5 times. That can give a start toward refining to estimate the correct length (baselen, above). To that end we might try removing elements at the end and seeing when we get ffts closer to actually having runs of four 0s between nonzero values.
Something else that might work for estimating number of repeats is finding the modal number of zeros in run length encoding of the thresholded ffts. While I have not actually tried that, it looks like it might be robust to bad choices in the details of how one does the thresholding (mine were just experiments that seem to work).
Daniel Lichtblau
The following assumes that the cycle starts on the first element and gives the period length and the cycle.
findCyclingList[a_?VectorQ] :=
Module[{repeats1, repeats2, cl, cLs, vec},
repeats1 = Flatten#Differences[Position[a, First[a]]];
repeats2 = Flatten[Position[repeats1, First[repeats1]]];
If[Equal ## Differences[repeats2] && Length[repeats2] > 2(*
is potentially cyclic - first element appears cyclically *),
cl = Plus ### Partition[repeats1, First[Differences[repeats2]]];
cLs = Partition[a, First[cl]];
If[SameQ ## cLs (* candidate cycles all actually the same *),
vec = First[cLs];
{Length[vec], vec}, $Failed], $Failed] ]
Testing
b = RandomInteger[50, {100}];
a = Join[b, b, b, b, Take[b, 27]];
findCyclingList[a]
{100, {47, 15, 42, 10, 14, 29, 12, 29, 11, 37, 6, 19, 14, 50, 4, 38,
23, 3, 41, 39, 41, 17, 32, 8, 18, 37, 5, 45, 38, 8, 39, 9, 26, 33,
40, 50, 0, 45, 1, 48, 32, 37, 15, 37, 49, 16, 27, 36, 11, 16, 4, 28,
31, 46, 30, 24, 30, 3, 32, 31, 31, 0, 32, 35, 47, 44, 7, 21, 1, 22,
43, 13, 44, 35, 29, 38, 31, 31, 17, 37, 49, 22, 15, 28, 21, 8, 31,
42, 26, 33, 1, 47, 26, 1, 37, 22, 40, 27, 27, 16}}
b1 = RandomInteger[10000, {100}];
a1 = Join[b1, b1, b1, b1, Take[b1, 23]];
findCyclingList[a1]
{100, {1281, 5325, 8435, 7505, 1355, 857, 2597, 8807, 1095, 4203,
3718, 3501, 7054, 4620, 6359, 1624, 6115, 8567, 4030, 5029, 6515,
5921, 4875, 2677, 6776, 2468, 7983, 4750, 7609, 9471, 1328, 7830,
2241, 4859, 9289, 6294, 7259, 4693, 7188, 2038, 3994, 1907, 2389,
6622, 4758, 3171, 1746, 2254, 556, 3010, 1814, 4782, 3849, 6695,
4316, 1548, 3824, 5094, 8161, 8423, 8765, 1134, 7442, 8218, 5429,
7255, 4131, 9474, 6016, 2438, 403, 6783, 4217, 7452, 2418, 9744,
6405, 8757, 9666, 4035, 7833, 2657, 7432, 3066, 9081, 9523, 3284,
3661, 1947, 3619, 2550, 4950, 1537, 2772, 5432, 6517, 6142, 9774,
1289, 6352}}
This case should fail because it isn't cyclical.
findCyclingList[Join[b, Take[b, 11], b]]
$Failed
I tried to something with Repeated, e.g. a /. Repeated[t__, {2, 100}] -> {t} but it just doesn't work for me.
Does this work for you?
period[a_] :=
Quiet[Check[
First[Cases[
Table[
{k, Equal ## Partition[a, k]},
{k, Floor[Length[a]/2]}],
{k_, True} :> k
]],
$Failed]]
Strictly speaking, this will fail for things like
a = {1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5}
although this can be fixed by using something like:
(Equal ## Partition[a, k]) && (Equal ## Partition[Reverse[a], k])
(probably computing Reverse[a] just once ahead of time.)
I propose this. It borrows from both Verbeia and Brett's answers.
Do[
If[MatchQ ## Equal ## Partition[#, i, i, 1, _], Return ## i],
{i, #[[ 2 ;; Floor[Length##/2] ]] ~Position~ First##}
] /. Null -> $Failed &
It is not quite as efficient as Vebeia's function on long periods, but it is faster on short ones, and it is simpler as well.
I don't know how to solve it in mathematica, but the following algorithm (written in python) should work. It's O(n) so speed should be no concern.
def period(array):
if len(array) == 0:
return False
else:
s = array[0]
match = False
end = 0
i = 0
for k in range(1,len(array)):
c = array[k]
if not match:
if c == s:
i = 1
match = True
end = k
else:
if not c == array[i]:
match = False
i += 1
if match:
return array[:end]
else:
return False
# False
print(period([4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2,1]))
# [4, 5, 1, 2, 3]
print(period([4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2]))
# False
print(period([4]))
# [4, 2]
print(period([4,2,4]))
# False
print(period([4,2,1]))
# False
print(period([]))
Ok, just to show my own work here:
ModifiedTortoiseHare[a_List] := Module[{counter, tortoise, hare},
Quiet[
Check[
counter = 1;
tortoise = a[[counter]];
hare = a[[2 counter]];
While[(tortoise != hare) || (a[[counter ;; 2 counter - 1]] != a[[2 counter ;; 3 counter - 1]]),
counter++;
tortoise = a[[counter]];
hare = a[[2 counter]];
];
counter,
$Failed]]]
I'm not sure this is a 100% correct, especially with cases like {pattern,pattern,different,pattern, pattern} and it gets slower and slower when there are a lot of repeating elements, like so:
{ 1,2,1,1, 1,2,1,1, 1,2,1,1, ...}
because it is making too many expensive comparisons.
#include <iostream>
#include <vector>
using namespace std;
int period(vector<int> v)
{
int p=0; // period 0
for(int i=p+1; i<v.size(); i++)
{
if(v[i] == v[0])
{
p=i; // new potential period
bool periodical=true;
for(int i=0; i<v.size()-p; i++)
{
if(v[i]!=v[i+p])
{
periodical=false;
break;
}
}
if(periodical) return p;
i=p; // try to find new period
}
}
return 0; // no period
}
int main()
{
vector<int> v3{1,2,3,1,2,3,1,2,3};
cout<<"Period is :\t"<<period(v3)<<endl;
vector<int> v0{1,2,3,1,2,3,1,9,6};
cout<<"Period is :\t"<<period(v0)<<endl;
vector<int> v1{1,2,1,1,7,1,2,1,1,7,1,2,1,1};
cout<<"Period is :\t"<<period(v1)<<endl;
return 0;
}
This sounds like it might relate to sequence alignment. These algorithms are well studied, and might already be implemented in mathematica.
I have the following problem.
I need to build a very large number of definitions(*) such as
f[{1,0,0,0}] = 1
f[{0,1,0,0}] = 2
f[{0,0,1,0}] = 3
f[{0,0,0,1}] = 2
...
f[{2,3,1,2}] = 4
...
f[{n1,n2,n3,n4}] = some integer
...
This is just an example. The length of the argument list does not need to be 4 but can be anything.
I realized that the lookup for each value slows down with exponential complexity when the length of the argument list increases. Perhaps this is not so strange, since it is clear that in principle there is a combinatorial explosion in how many definitions Mathematica needs to store.
Though, I have expected Mathematica to be smart and that value extract should be constant time complexity. Apparently it is not.
Is there any way to speed up lookup time? This probably has to do with how Mathematica internally handles symbol definition lookups. Does it phrases the list until it finds the match? It seems that it does so.
All suggestions highly appreciated.
With best regards
Zoran
(*) I am working on a stochastic simulation software that generates all configurations of a system and needs to store how many times each configuration occurred. In that sense a list {n1, n2, ..., nT} describes a particular configuration of the system saying that there are n1 particles of type 1, n2 particles of type 2, ..., nT particles of type T. There can be exponentially many such configurations.
Could you give some detail on how you worked out that lookup time is exponential?
If it is indeed exponential, perhaps you could speed things up by using Hash on your keys (configurations), then storing key-value pairs in a list like {{key1,value1},{key2,value2}}, kept sorted by key and then using binary search (which should be log time). This should be very quick to code up but not optimum in terms of speed.
If that's not fast enough, one could think about setting up a proper hashtable implementation (which I thought was what the f[{0,1,0,1}]=3 approach did, without having checked).
But some toy example of the slowdown would be useful to proceed further...
EDIT: I just tried
test[length_] := Block[{f},
Do[
f[RandomInteger[{0, 10}, 100]] = RandomInteger[0, 10];,
{i, 1, length}
];
f[{0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 7, 0, 3, 7, 8, 0, 4, 5, 8, 0, 8, 6, 7, 7, 0, 1, 6,
3, 9, 6, 9, 2, 7, 2, 8, 1, 1, 8, 4, 0, 5, 2, 9, 9, 10, 6, 3, 6,
8, 10, 0, 7, 1, 2, 8, 4, 4, 9, 5, 1, 10, 4, 1, 1, 3, 0, 3, 6, 5,
4, 0, 9, 5, 4, 6, 9, 6, 10, 6, 2, 4, 9, 2, 9, 8, 10, 0, 8, 4, 9,
5, 5, 9, 7, 2, 7, 4, 0, 2, 0, 10, 2, 4, 10, 1}] // timeIt
]
with timeIt defined to accurately time even short runs as follows:
timeIt::usage = "timeIt[expr] gives the time taken to execute expr,
repeating as many times as necessary to achieve a total time of \
1s";
SetAttributes[timeIt, HoldAll]
timeIt[expr_] := Module[{t = Timing[expr;][[1]], tries = 1},
While[t < 1.,
tries *= 2;
t = Timing[Do[expr, {tries}];][[1]];
];
Return[t/tries]]
and then
out = {#, test[#]} & /# {10, 100, 1000, 10000, 100000, 100000};
ListLogLogPlot#out
(also for larger runs). So it seems constant time here.
Suppose you enter your information not like
f[{1,0,0,0}] = 1
f[{0,1,0,0}] = 2
but into a n1 x n2 x n3 x n4 matrix m like
m[[2,1,1,1]] = 1
m[[1,2,1,1]] = 2
etc.
(you could even enter values not as f[{1,0,0,0}]=1, but as f[{1,0,0,0},1] with
f[li_List, i_Integer] := Part[m, Apply[Sequence, li + 1]] = i;
f[li_List] := Part[m, Apply[Sequence, li + 1]];
where you have to initialize m e.g. by m = ConstantArray[0, {4, 4, 4, 4}];)
Let's compare timings:
testf[z_] :=
(
Do[ f[{n1, n2, n3, n4}] = RandomInteger[{1,100}], {n1,z}, {n2,z}, {n3,z},{n4,z}];
First[ Timing[ Do[ f[{n2, n4, n1, n3}], {n1, z}, {n2, z}, {n3, z}, {n4, z} ] ] ]
);
Framed[
ListLinePlot[
Table[{z, testf[z]}, {z, 22, 36, 2}],
PlotLabel -> Row[{"DownValue approach: ",
Round[MemoryInUse[]/1024.^2],
" MB needed"
}],
AxesLabel -> {"n1,n2,n3,n4", "time/s"},ImageSize -> 500
]
]
Clear[f];
testf2[z_] :=
(
m = RandomInteger[{1, 100}, {z, z, z, z}];
f2[ni__Integer] := m[[Sequence ## ({ni} + 1)]];
First[ Timing[ Do[ f2[{n2, n4, n1, n3}], {n1, z}, {n2, z}, {n3, z}, {n4, z}] ] ]
)
Framed[
ListLinePlot[
Table[{z, testf2[z]}, {z, 22, 36, 2}],
PlotLabel -> Row[{"Matrix approach: ",
Round[MemoryInUse[]/1024.^2],
" MB needed"
}],
AxesLabel -> {"n1,n2,n3,n4", "time/s"}, ImageSize -> 500
]
]
gives
So for larger sets up information a matrix approach seems clearly preferrable.
Of course, if you have truly large data, say more GB than you have RAM, then you just
have to use a database and DatabaseLink.
Is there any way to find the lowest modulus of a list of integers? I'm not sure how to say it correctly, so I'm going to clarify with an example.
I'd like to input a list (mod x) and output the "same" list, modulus y (< x). For example, the list {0, 4, 6, 10, 12, 16, 18, 22} (mod 24) is essentially the same as {0, 4} (mod 6).
Thank you for all your help.
You are looking for a set of arithmetic sequences. We'll consider your example
ee = {0, 4, 6, 10, 12, 16, 18, 22};
which has two such sequences, and an example with four of them.
ff = {0, 3, 7, 11, 17, 20, 24, 28, 34, 37, 41, 45};
In this second one we start with {0,3,7,11} and then increase by 17. So what is the general way to get from the nth term to the n+1th? If the set has k sequences (k=2 for ee and 4 for ff) then add the modulus to the n-k+1th term. What is the modulus? It is the difference between the nth and n-kth terms.
Putting this together and assuming we know k (we don't in general, but we'll get to that) we have a recurrence of the form f(n+1)=f(n-k+1) + (f(n)-f(n-k)). So we need to find a recurrence (if one exists), check that it is of the correct form, and post-process if so.
Here is code to do all this. Note that it in effect solves for k.
findArithmeticSequences[ll : {_Integer ..}] := With[
{rec = FindLinearRecurrence[ll]},
{Take[ll, Length[rec] - 1], ll[[Length[rec]]]} /;
ListQ[rec] &&
(rec === {1, 1, -1} || MatchQ[rec, {1, 0 .., 1, -1}])
]
(Afficionados of pure functions might prefer the variant below. Failure cases are handled a bit differently, for no compelling reason.)
findArithmeticSequences2[ll : {_Integer ..}] :=
If[ListQ[#] &&
(# === {1, 1, -1} || MatchQ[#, {1, 0 .., 1, -1}]), {Take[ll,
Length[#] - 1], ll[[Length[#]]]}, $Failed] &[
FindLinearRecurrence[ll]]
Tests:
In[115]:= findArithmeticSequences[ee]
Out[115]= {{0, 4}, 6}
In[116]:= findArithmeticSequences[ff]
Out[116]= {{0, 3, 7, 11}, 17}
Note that one can "almost" do such problems by polynomial factorization (if the input has no partial sequences at the end). For example, the polynomial
In[117]:= poly = Plus ## (x^ee)
Out[117]= 1 + x^4 + x^6 + x^10 + x^12 + x^16 + x^18 + x^22
factors into
(1+x^4)*(1+x^6+x^12+x^18)
which contains the needed information in a way that is easy to see. Unfortunately for this particular purpose, Factor will factor beyond this point, and obscure the information in so doing.
I keep wondering if there might be a signal processing way to go about this sort of thing, e.g. via DFTs. But I've not come up with anything.
Daniel Lichtblau
Wow, thank you Daniel for this! It works nearly the way I want it to. Your method is just a bit "too restrictive". It doesn't return anything useful if 'FindLinearRecurrence' doesn't find any recurrence. I've modified your method a bit, so it suits my needs better. I hope you don't mind. Here's my code.
findArithmeticSequences[ll_List] := Module[{rec = FindLinearRecurrence[ll]},
If[! MatchQ[rec, {1, 0 ..., 1, -1}], Return[ll],
Return[{ll[[Length[rec]]], Take[ll, Length[rec] - 1]}];
];
];
I had a feeling it'd have to involve recurrence, I just don't have enough experience with Mathematica to implement it. Thank you again for your time!
Mod is listable, and you can remove duplicate elements by DeleteDuplicates. So
DeleteDuplicates[Mod[{0, 4, 6, 10, 12, 16, 18, 22}, 6]]
(*
-> {0,4}
*)
Suppose we want to generate a list of primes p for which p + 2 is also prime.
A quick solution is to generate a complete list of the first n primes and use the Select function to return the elements which meet the condition.
Select[Table[Prime[k], {k, n}], PrimeQ[# + 2] &]
However, this is inefficient as it loads a large list into the memory before returning the filtered list. A For loop with Sow/Reap (or l = {}; AppendTo[l, k]) solves the memory issue, but it is far from elegant and is cumbersome to implement a number of times in a Mathematica script.
Reap[
For[k = 1, k <= n, k++,
p = Prime[k];
If[PrimeQ[p + 2], Sow[p]]
]
][[-1, 1]]
An ideal solution would be a built-in function which allows an option similar to this.
Table[Prime[k], {k, n}, AddIf -> PrimeQ[# + 2] &]
I will interpret this more as a question about automation and software engineering rather than about the specific problem at hand, and given a large number of solutions posted already. Reap and Sow are good means (possibly, the best in the symbolic setting) to collect intermediate results. Let us just make it general, to avoid code duplication.
What we need is to write a higher-order function. I will not do anything radically new, but will simply package your solution to make it more generally applicable:
Clear[tableGen];
tableGen[f_, iter : {i_Symbol, __}, addif : Except[_List] : (True &)] :=
Module[{sowTag},
If[# === {}, #, First##] &#
Last#Reap[Do[If[addif[#], Sow[#,sowTag]] &[f[i]], iter],sowTag]];
The advantages of using Do over For are that the loop variable is localized dynamically (so, no global modifications for it outside the scope of Do), and also the iterator syntax of Do is closer to that of Table (Do is also slightly faster).
Now, here is the usage
In[56]:= tableGen[Prime, {i, 10}, PrimeQ[# + 2] &]
Out[56]= {3, 5, 11, 17, 29}
In[57]:= tableGen[Prime, {i, 3, 10}, PrimeQ[# + 1] &]
Out[57]= {}
In[58]:= tableGen[Prime, {i, 10}]
Out[58]= {2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29}
EDIT
This version is closer to the syntax you mentioned (it takes an expression rather than a function):
ClearAll[tableGenAlt];
SetAttributes[tableGenAlt, HoldAll];
tableGenAlt[expr_, iter_List, addif : Except[_List] : (True &)] :=
Module[{sowTag},
If[# === {}, #, First##] &#
Last#Reap[Do[If[addif[#], Sow[#,sowTag]] &[expr], iter],sowTag]];
It has an added advantage that you may even have iterator symbols defined globally, since they are passed unevaluated and dynamically localized. Examples of use:
In[65]:= tableGenAlt[Prime[i], {i, 10}, PrimeQ[# + 2] &]
Out[65]= {3, 5, 11, 17, 29}
In[68]:= tableGenAlt[Prime[i], {i, 10}]
Out[68]= {2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29}
Note that since the syntax is different now, we had to use the Hold-attribute to prevent the passed expression expr from premature evaluation.
EDIT 2
Per #Simon's request, here is the generalization for many dimensions:
ClearAll[tableGenAltMD];
SetAttributes[tableGenAltMD, HoldAll];
tableGenAltMD[expr_, iter__List, addif : Except[_List] : (True &)] :=
Module[{indices, indexedRes, sowTag},
SetDelayed ## Prepend[Thread[Map[Take[#, 1] &, List ## Hold ### Hold[iter]],
Hold], indices];
indexedRes =
If[# === {}, #, First##] &#
Last#Reap[Do[If[addif[#], Sow[{#, indices},sowTag]] &[expr], iter],sowTag];
Map[
First,
SplitBy[indexedRes ,
Table[With[{i = i}, Function[Slot[1][[2, i]]]], {i,Length[Hold[iter]] - 1}]],
{-3}]];
It is considerably less trivial, since I had to Sow the indices together with the added values, and then split the resulting flat list according to the indices. Here is an example of use:
{i, j, k} = {1, 2, 3};
tableGenAltMD[i + j + k, {i, 1, 5}, {j, 1, 3}, {k, 1, 2}, # < 7 &]
{{{3, 4}, {4, 5}, {5, 6}}, {{4, 5}, {5, 6}, {6}}, {{5, 6}, {6}}, {{6}}}
I assigned the values to i,j,k iterator variables to illustrate that this function does localize the iterator variables and is insensitive to possible global values for them. To check the result, we may use Table and then delete the elements not satisfying the condition:
In[126]:=
DeleteCases[Table[i + j + k, {i, 1, 5}, {j, 1, 3}, {k, 1, 2}],
x_Integer /; x >= 7, Infinity] //. {} :> Sequence[]
Out[126]= {{{3, 4}, {4, 5}, {5, 6}}, {{4, 5}, {5, 6}, {6}}, {{5, 6}, {6}}, {{6}}}
Note that I did not do extensive checks so the current version may contain bugs and needs some more testing.
EDIT 3 - BUG FIX
Note the important bug-fix: in all functions, I now use Sow with a custom unique tag, and Reap as well. Without this change, the functions would not work properly when expression they evaluate also uses Sow. This is a general situation with Reap-Sow, and resembles that for exceptions (Throw-Catch).
EDIT 4 - SyntaxInformation
Since this is such a potentially useful function, it is nice to make it behave more like a built-in function. First we add syntax highlighting and basic argument checking through
SyntaxInformation[tableGenAltMD] = {"ArgumentsPattern" -> {_, {_, _, _., _.}.., _.},
"LocalVariables" -> {"Table", {2, -2}}};
Then, adding a usage message allows the menu item "Make Template" (Shift+Ctrl+k) to work:
tableGenAltMD::usage = "tableGenAltMD[expr,{i,imax},addif] will generate \
a list of values expr when i runs from 1 to imax, \
only including elements if addif[expr] returns true.
The default of addiff is True&."
A more complete and formatted usage message can be found in this gist.
I think the Reap/Sow approach is likely to be most efficient in terms of memory usage. Some alternatives might be:
DeleteCases[(With[{p=Prime[#]},If[PrimeQ[p+2],p,{}] ] ) & /# Range[K]),_List]
Or (this one might need some sort of DeleteCases to eliminate Null results):
FoldList[[(With[{p=Prime[#2]},If[PrimeQ[p+2],p] ] )& ,1.,Range[2,K] ]
Both hold a big list of integers 1 to K in memory, but the Primes are scoped inside the With[] construct.
Yes, this is another answer. Another alternative that includes the flavour of the Reap/Sow approach and the FoldList approach would be to use Scan.
result = {1};
Scan[With[{p=Prime[#]},If[PrimeQ[p+2],result={result,p}]]&,Range[2,K] ];
Flatten[result]
Again, this involves a long list of integers, but the intermediate Prime results are not stored because they are in the local scope of With. Because p is a constant in the scope of the With function, you can use With rather than Module, and gain a bit of speed.
You can perhaps try something like this:
Clear[f, primesList]
f = With[{p = Prime[#]},Piecewise[{{p, PrimeQ[p + 2]}}, {}] ] &;
primesList[k_] := Union#Flatten#(f /# Range[k]);
If you want both the prime p and the prime p+2, then the solution is
Clear[f, primesList]
f = With[{p = Prime[#]},Piecewise[{{p, PrimeQ[p + 2]}}, {}] ] &;
primesList[k_] :=
Module[{primes = f /# Range[k]},
Union#Flatten#{primes, primes + 2}];
Well, someone has to allocate memory somewhere for the full table size, since it is not known before hand what the final size will be.
In the good old days before functional programming :), this sort of thing was solved by allocating the maximum array size, and then using a separate index to insert to it so no holes are made. Like this
x=Table[0,{100}]; (*allocate maximum possible*)
j=0;
Table[ If[PrimeQ[k+2], x[[++j]]=k],{k,100}];
x[[1;;j]] (*the result is here *)
{1,3,5,9,11,15,17,21,27,29,35,39,41,45,51,57,59,65,69,71,77,81,87,95,99}
Here's another couple of alternatives using NextPrime:
pairs1[pmax_] := Select[Range[pmax], PrimeQ[#] && NextPrime[#] == 2 + # &]
pairs2[pnum_] := Module[{p}, NestList[(p = NextPrime[#];
While[p + 2 != (p = NextPrime[p])];
p - 2) &, 3, pnum]]
and a modification of your Reap/Sow solution that lets you specify the maximum prime:
pairs3[pmax_] := Module[{k,p},
Reap[For[k = 1, (p = Prime[k]) <= pmax, k++,
If[PrimeQ[p + 2], Sow[p]]]][[-1, 1]]]
The above are in order of increasing speed.
In[4]:= pairs2[10000]//Last//Timing
Out[4]= {3.48,1261079}
In[5]:= pairs1[1261079]//Last//Timing
Out[5]= {6.84,1261079}
In[6]:= pairs3[1261079]//Last//Timing
Out[7]= {0.58,1261079}
I have a problem similar to IntegerPartitions function, in that I want to list all non-negative integer xi's such that, for a given list of integers {c1,c2,...,cn} and an integer n:
x1*c1+x2*c2+...+xn*cn=n
Please share your thoughts. Many thanks.
The built-in function FrobeniusSolve solves the case where the c1, c2, ..., cn are positive integers (and the right hand side is not n):
In[1]:= FrobeniusSolve[{2, 3, 5, 6}, 13]
Out[1]= {{0, 1, 2, 0}, {1, 0, 1, 1}, {1, 2, 1, 0}, {2, 1, 0, 1}, {2,
3, 0, 0}, {4, 0, 1, 0}, {5, 1, 0, 0}}
Is this the case you need, or do you need negative c1, c2, ..., cn also?
Construct your list of ci's and coefficients using
n = 10;
cList = RandomInteger[{1, 20}, n]
xList = Table[Symbol["x" <> ToString[i]], {i, n}]
Then, if there's a set of solutions for non-negative xi's, it will be found by
Reduce[cList.xList == n && And##Thread[xList >= 0], xList, Integers]