Java program taking forever to run with large numbers - java

I am writing a Java program that calculates the largest prime factor of a large number. But I have an issue with the program's complexity, I don't know what has caused the program to run forever for large numbers, it works fine with small numbers.
I have proceeded as follow :
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.Collections;
public class Largest_prime_factor {
public static void main(String[] args)
{
//ArrayList primesArray = new ArrayList();
ArrayList factorArray = new ArrayList();
long largest = 1;
long number = 600851475143L ;
long i, j, k;
//the array list factorArray will have all factors of number
for (i = 2; i < number; i++)
{
if( number % i == 0)
{
factorArray.add(i);
}
}
Here, the Array List will have all the factors of the number.
So I'll need to get only the prime ones, for that, I used a method that checks if a number is prime or not, if it's not a prime number, I remove it from the list using the following method :
java.util.ArrayList.remove()
So the next part of the code is as follow :
for (i = 2; i < number; i++)
{
if (!isPrime(i))
{
factorArray.remove(i);
System.out.println(factorArray);
}
}
System.out.println(Collections.max(factorArray));
}
The last line prints the largest number of factorArray, which is what I am looking for.
public static boolean isPrime(long n)
{
if(n > 2 && (n & 1) == 0)
return false;
for(int i = 3; i * i <= n; i += 2)
if (n % i == 0)
return false;
return true;
}
}
The function above is what I used to determine if the number is a prime or not before removing it from the list.
This program works perfectly for small numbers, but it takes forever to give an output for large numbers, although the last function is pretty fast.
At first, I used to check if a number is prime or not inside of the first loop, but it was even slower.

You are looping over 600851475143 numbers.
long number = 600851475143L ;
for (i = 2; i < number; i++)
Even if we assume that each iteration takes very very small time (as small as 1 microsecond), it'll still take days before the loop finishes.
You need to optimise your prime-finding logic in order for this program to run faster.
One way to reduce the iterations to reasonable number is to loop until square root of number.
for (i = 2; i < Math.sqrt(number); i++)
or
for (i = 2; i*i < number; i++)

The calculation of the prime factors of 600851475143L should take less than a milli-second (with a not totally inefficient algorithm). The main parts your code is currently missing:
The border should be sqrt(number) and not number.
The current value should be checked in a while-loop (to prevent that non-prime-factors are added to the list, reduces range to check).
The max. value should be decreased (as well as the border) to number/factor after finding a factor.
Further improvements are possible, e.g. to iterate only over non-even numbers (or only iterate over numbers that are neither a multiple of 2 and 3) etc.
An example implementation for the same question on codereview (link):
public static long largestPrimeFactor(
final long input) {
////
if (input < 2)
throw new IllegalArgumentException();
long n = input;
long last = 0;
for (; (n & 1) == 0; n >>= 1)
last = 2;
for (; n % 3 == 0; n /= 3)
last = 3;
for (long v = 5, add = 2, border = (long) Math.sqrt(n); v <= border; v += add, add ^= 6)
while (n % v == 0)
border = (long) Math.sqrt(n /= last = v);
return n == 1 ? last : n;
}

for (i = 2; i < number; i++)
{
if( number % i == 0)
{
factorArray.add(i);
}
}
For an large input size, you will be visiting up to the value of the number. Same for the loop of removing factors.
long number = 600851475143L ;
this is a huge number, and you're looping through this twice. Try putting in a count for every 10,000 or 100,000 (if i%10000 print(i)) and you'll get an idea of how fast it's moving.

One of the possible solutions is to only test if the the prime numbers smaller than the large number divide it.
So I checked
for (i=2; i < number; i++)
{
if(isPrime(i))
{
if( number % i == 0)
{
factorArray.add(i);
}
}
}
So here I'll only be dividing by prime numbers instead of dividing by all numbers smaller than 600851475143.
But this is still not fast, a complete modification of the algorithm is necessary to obtain an optimal one.

#Balkrishna Rawool suggestion is the right way to go. For that I would suggest to change the iteration like this: for (i = 3; i < Math.sqrt(number); i+=2) and handle the 2 manually. That will decrease your looping because none of the even numbers except 2 are prime.

Related

How to find the 5th perfect number (which is 33550336)? The problem is taking forever to run

I am trying to write a Java method that checks whether a number is a perfect number or not.
A perfect number is a number that is equal to the sum of all its divisor (excluding itself).
For example, 6 is a perfect number because 1+2+3=6. Then, I have to write a Java program to use the method to display the first 5 perfect numbers.
I have no problem with this EXCEPT that it is taking forever to get the 5th perfect number which is 33550336.
I am aware that this is because of the for loop in my isPerfectNumber() method. However, I am very new to coding and I do not know how to come up with a better code.
public class Labreport2q1 {
public static void main(String[] args) {
//Display the 5 first perfect numbers
int counter = 0,
i = 0;
while (counter != 5) {
i++;
isPerfectNumber(i);
if (isPerfectNumber(i)) {
counter++;
System.out.println(i + " ");
}
}
}
public static boolean isPerfectNumber(int a) {
int divisor = 0;
int sum = 0;
for (int i = 1; i < a; i++) {
if (a % i == 0) {
divisor = i;
sum += divisor;
}
}
return sum == a;
}
}
This is the output that is missing the 5th perfect number
Let's check the properties of a perfect number. This Math Overflow question tells us two very interesting things:
A perfect number is never a perfect square.
A perfect number is of the form (2k-1)×(2k-1).
The 2nd point is very interesting because it reduces our search field to barely nothing. An int in Java is 32 bits. And here we see a direct correlation between powers and bit positions. Thanks to this, instead of making millions and millions of calls to isPerfectNumber, we will be making less than 32 to find the 5th perfect number.
So we can already change the search field, that's your main loop.
int count = 0;
for (int k = 1; count < 5; k++) {
// Compute candidates based on the formula.
int candidate = (1L << (k - 1)) * ((1L << k) - 1);
// Only test candidates, not all the numbers.
if (isPerfectNumber(candidate)) {
count++;
System.out.println(candidate);
}
}
This here is our big win. No other optimization will beat this: why test for 33 million numbers, when you can test less than 100?
But even though we have a tremendous improvement, your application as a whole can still be improved, namely your method isPerfectNumber(int).
Currently, you are still testing way too many numbers. A perfect number is the sum of all proper divisors. So if d divides n, n/d also divides n. And you can add both divisors at once. But the beauty is that you can stop at sqrt(n), because sqrt(n)*sqrt(n) = n, mathematically speaking. So instead of testing n divisors, you will only test sqrt(n) divisors.
Also, this means that you have to start thinking about corner cases. The corner cases are 1 and sqrt(n):
1 is a corner case because you if you divide n by 1, you get n but you don't add n to check if n is a perfect number. You only add 1. So we'll probably start our sum with 1 just to avoid too many ifs.
sqrt(n) is a corner case because we'd have to check whether sqrt(n) is an integer or not and it's tedious. BUT the Math Overflow question I referenced says that no perfect number is a perfect square, so that eases our loop condition.
Then, if at some point sum becomes greater than n, we can stop. The sum of proper divisors being greater than n indicates that n is abundant, and therefore not perfect. It's a small improvement, but a lot of candidates are actually abundant. So you'll probably save a few cycles if you keep it.
Finally, we have to take care of a slight issue: the number 1 as candidate. 1 is the first candidate, and will pass all our tests, so we have to make a special case for it. We'll add that test at the start of the method.
We can now write the method as follow:
static boolean isPerfectNumber(int n) {
// 1 would pass the rest because it has everything of a perfect number
// except that its only divisor is itself, and we need at least 2 divisors.
if (n < 2) return false;
// divisor 1 is such a corner case that it's very easy to handle:
// just start the sum with it already.
int sum = 1;
// We can stop the divisors at sqrt(n), but this is floored.
int sqrt = (int)Math.sqrt(n);
// A perfect number is never a square.
// It's useful to make this test here if we take the function
// without the context of the sparse candidates, because we
// might get some weird results if this method is simply
// copy-pasted and tested on all numbers.
// This condition can be removed in the final program because we
// know that no numbers of the form indicated above is a square.
if (sqrt * sqrt == n) {
return false;
}
// Since sqrt is floored, some values can still be interesting.
// For instance if you take n = 6, floor(sqrt(n)) = 2, and
// 2 is a proper divisor of 6, so we must keep it, we do it by
// using the <= operator.
// Also, sqrt * sqrt != n, so we can safely loop to sqrt
for (int div = 2; div <= sqrt; div++) {
if (n % div == 0) {
// Add both the divisor and n / divisor.
sum += div + n / div;
// Early fail if the number is abundant.
if (sum > n) return false;
}
}
return n == sum;
}
These are such optimizations that you can even find the 7th perfect number under a second, on the condition that you adapt the code for longs instead of ints. And you could still find the 8th within 30 seconds.
So here's that program (test it online). I removed the comments as the explanations are here above.
public class Main {
public static void main(String[] args) {
int count = 0;
for (int k = 1; count < 8; k++) {
long candidate = (1L << (k - 1)) * ((1L << k) - 1);
if (isPerfectNumber(candidate)) {
count++;
System.out.println(candidate);
}
}
}
static boolean isPerfectNumber(long n) {
if (n < 2) return false;
long sum = 1;
long sqrt = (long)Math.sqrt(n);
for (long div = 2; div <= sqrt; div++) {
if (n % div == 0) {
sum += div + n / div;
if (sum > n) return false;
}
}
return n == sum;
}
}
The result of the above program is the list of the first 8 perfect numbers:
6
28
496
8128
33550336
8589869056
137438691328
2305843008139952128
You can find further optimization, notably in the search if you check whether 2k-1 is prime or not as Eran says in their answer, but given that we have less than 100 candidates for longs, I don't find it useful to potentially gain a few milliseconds because computing primes can also be expensive in this program. If you want to check for bigger perfect primes, it makes sense, but here? No: it adds complexity and I tried to keep these optimization rather simple and straight to the point.
There are some heuristics to break early from the loops, but finding the 5th perfect number still took me several minutes (I tried similar heuristics to those suggested in the other answers).
However, you can rely on Euler's proof that all even perfect numbers (and it is still unknown if there are any odd perfect numbers) are of the form:
2i-1(2i-1)
where both i and 2i-1 must be prime.
Therefore, you can write the following loop to find the first 5 perfect numbers very quickly:
int counter = 0,
i = 0;
while (counter != 5) {
i++;
if (isPrime (i)) {
if (isPrime ((int) (Math.pow (2, i) - 1))) {
System.out.println ((int) (Math.pow (2, i -1) * (Math.pow (2, i) - 1)));
counter++;
}
}
}
Output:
6
28
496
8128
33550336
You can read more about it here.
If you switch from int to long, you can use this loop to find the first 7 perfect numbers very quickly:
6
28
496
8128
33550336
8589869056
137438691328
The isPrime method I'm using is:
public static boolean isPrime (int a)
{
if (a == 1)
return false;
else if (a < 3)
return true;
else {
for (int i = 2; i * i <= a; i++) {
if (a % i == 0)
return false;
}
}
return true;
}

Decrease execution time of the Java program

I wrote the following program for the second problem of project Euler, for the question: "Project Euler #3: Largest prime factor".It is supposed to print out all the highest prime factors of the provided inputs.
import java.util.Scanner;
public class euler_2 {
public static boolean isPrime(int n) {
if (n % 2 == 0) return false;
for (int i = 3; i * i <= n; i += 2) {
if (n % i == 0)
return false;
}
return true;
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
Scanner sc = new Scanner(System.in);
int a = sc.nextInt();
for (int i = 0; i < a; i++) {
int b = sc.nextInt();
for (int j = b; j >= 1; j--) {
boolean aa = isPrime(j);
if (aa == true && b % j == 0) {
b = j;
break;
}
}
System.out.println(b);
}
}
}
What changes can I make to the program to make it execute faster? What would be a better algorithm for this problem?
The problem with your approach is that for every number N, you try each number smaller or equal to N whether it is a prime and after that whether it is a divisor of N.
Obvious improvement is to check whether it is a divisor first and only then whether it is a prime. But most probably this will not help that much.
What you can do instead is just to start checking each number whether it is a divisor of a number. If it is a divisor, divide it. You continue this till sqrt(N).
I have not done anything with java in a long time, but here is Go implementation, which most probably any Java person will be able to transform to Java.
func biggestPrime(n uint64) uint64 {
p, i := uint64(1), uint64(0)
for i = 2; i < uint64(math.Sqrt(float64(n))) + uint64(1); i++ {
for n % i == 0 {
n /= i
p = i
}
}
if n > 1 {
p = n
}
return p
}
Using my algorithm it will take you O(sqrt(N)) to find the biggest prime of a number. In your case it was O(N * sqrt(N))
Attempt to factor the number into 2 factors. Repeat on the largest factor found so far until you find one that can't be factored -- that is the largest prime factor.
There are many different ways you might try to factor the numbers, but since they are only ints, then Fermat's method or even trial division (going down from sqrt(N)) will probably do. See http://mathworld.wolfram.com/FermatsFactorizationMethod.html

Prime Factorization With Java and Finding an Upper Bound

Here is what I am looking to do. I have listed my code below for your reference. Thank you in advance for any help you can provide.
Goal: Find Prime Factorizations of a number n. Then concatenate the prime factors into one number, x. Then Take that number, x, and divide by n. If x%n = 0, print True. If x%n != 0, print false. (i.e. if n = 100, Prime Factors are 2,2,5,5. Turn into 2255, then take 2255/100. 2255%100 != 0, Print False. )
What I have now prints out the prime factors correctly for some numbers, but when I try to use another prime number, the program will quit. Also, If I use a number like 123, it will only print out 3, not 3 and 41. Do you have any suggestions?
If possible, ideally I would like to run this for numbers j= 2 through any upper bound I set, call the upper bound U, and if any value for j = 2 through U yields a result that is true (from above) Then I would like to print that j value.
import acm.program.*;
import acm.util.*;
import java.util.Scanner;
import java.util.Arrays.*;
// -------------------------------------------------------------------------
public class FactorsLoop extends ConsoleProgram
{
//~ Instance/static variables .............................................
private RandomGenerator rgen = RandomGenerator.getInstance();
//~ Constructor ...........................................................
// ----------------------------------------------------------
/**
* Creates a new ForLoops object.
*/
public void run()
{
//
int n1 = 10000;
int n2 =(n1);
double U = 10000;
StringBuilder factors = new StringBuilder();
for (int j = 2; j < U; j++) {
for (int i = 2; i*i <= n1; i++) {
// if i is a factor of N, repeatedly divide it out
while (n1% i == 0) {
n1 = n1 / i;
factors.append(Integer.toString(i));
}
}
}
double newNumber = Integer.parseInt(factors.toString());
double x = (newNumber / n2);
print(x);
if ( newNumber % n2 == 0 ){
println(n2);
}
}
}
Your code correctly adds all those primes to factors which it divides out. However, it also should add n1 after the loop, should it happen to be != 1 (which will occur precisely when the power of the largest factor is 1).
The reason is the optimisation in your code whereby the inner loop is exited when the current factor exceeds sqrt(n1) (condition i*i <= n1 in the for loop header). This is a valid optimisation but like many optimisations it makes the logic more complicated and error-prone...
Note: the outer loop that iterates j does not seem to make any sense at all; it will only cause the small factors to be appended repeatedly. Get the inner loop into working shape, factor it out into a separate function (pun intended) and then use it to implement your ranged test which looks for the first result that satisfies some criterion.
For example, the function that returns the concatenated factors could look like this:
public string concatenated_factors (int n)
{
StringBuilder result = new StringBuilder();
for (int i = 2; i * i <= n; ++i)
for ( ; n % i == 0; n /= i)
result.append(Integer.toString(i));
if (n != 1)
result.append(Integer.toString(n));
return result.toString();
}
Note: I'm not familiar with Java, so some specifics may be a bit fuzzy here.

Prime Factorization in Java

I'm working on a prime factorization program in Java one that displays all prime factors of a number even if they are repeated. And I have this:
public static void factors(int a)
{
int c=1;
for(int i = 1; i <= a;i++)
{
if(a%i == 0)
{
for(int k = 2; k < i; k++)
{
if(i%k == 0)
{
c = 1;
break;
}
else
{
c = 0;
}
}
if(c == 0 || i == 2)
{
System.out.print(i+ ", ");
}
}
}
}
I need to account for repeated factors (as in 2, 2, 2 for 8). How could I do that without completely restructuring?
I think you should start over, and build an algorithm from this simple description:
Prepare a List<Integer> of prime numbers that are less than or equal to 2^16
Run through this list from low to high, trying each prime in turn as a candidate divisor
Every time you run into a working divisor, continually divide it out until you can no longer divide the number by it; then continue to the next prime
Once you reach the end of the list of primes, your remaining number should be printed as well, unless it is equal to 1.
Finding a list of primes is a fun problem in itself. Dijkstra wrote a fascinating chapter on it back in 1972. This article has a C++ implementation and a very nice discussion.
You can have another collection that maintains the factors and their count and can finally account for repeated factors. A map with counts would be my choice.
(1) if(c == 0 || i == 2) is wrong, it will print 2 for a == 5 as well.
(2) In order to do what you are asking without changing the code (*) - you should count how many times each prime factor is diviseable by the number. It can be done by simply adding a new loop before your print statement [pseudo code]:
boolean b = true;
int k = 1;
while (b) {
if (a % (int) Math.pow(i, k+1) == 0) k++;
else b = false;
}
at the end of this loop, k denotes how many times i is a prime factor of a.
(*) Note: Though this approach should work, I'd still go with #KerrekSB suggestion to a redesign.

Prime factorization algorithm fails for big numbers

I have run into a weird issue for problem 3 of Project Euler. The program works for other numbers that are small, like 13195, but it throws this error when I try to crunch a big number like 600851475143:
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.ArithmeticException: / by zero
at euler3.Euler3.main(Euler3.java:16)
Here's my code:
//Number whose prime factors will be determined
long num = 600851475143L;
//Declaration of variables
ArrayList factorsList = new ArrayList();
ArrayList primeFactorsList = new ArrayList();
//Generates a list of factors
for (int i = 2; i < num; i++)
{
if (num % i == 0)
{
factorsList.add(i);
}
}
//If the integer(s) in the factorsList are divisable by any number between 1
//and the integer itself (non-inclusive), it gets replaced by a zero
for (int i = 0; i < factorsList.size(); i++)
{
for (int j = 2; j < (Integer) factorsList.get(i); j++)
{
if ((Integer) factorsList.get(i) % j == 0)
{
factorsList.set(i, 0);
}
}
}
//Transfers all non-zero numbers into a new list called primeFactorsList
for (int i = 0; i < factorsList.size(); i++)
{
if ((Integer) factorsList.get(i) != 0)
{
primeFactorsList.add(factorsList.get(i));
}
}
Why is it only big numbers that cause this error?
Your code is just using Integer, which is a 32-bit type with a maximum value of 2147483647. It's unsurprising that it's failing when used for numbers much bigger than that. Note that your initial loop uses int as the loop variable, so would actually loop forever if it didn't throw an exception. The value of i will go from the 2147483647 to -2147483648 and continue.
Use BigInteger to handle arbitrarily large values, or Long if you're happy with a limited range but a larger one. (The maximum value of long / Long is 9223372036854775807L.)
However, I doubt that this is really the approach that's expected... it's going to take a long time for big numbers like that.
Not sure if it's the case as I don't know which line is which - but I notice your first loop uses an int.
//Generates a list of factors
for (int i = 2; i < num; i++)
{
if (num % i == 0)
{
factorsList.add(i);
}
}
As num is a long, its possible that num > Integer.MAX_INT and your loop is wrapping around to negative at MAX_INT then looping until 0, giving you a num % 0 operation.
Why does your solution not work?
Well numbers are discrete in hardware. Discrete means thy have a min and max values. Java uses two's complement, to store negative values, so 2147483647+1 == -2147483648. This is because for type int, max value is 2147483647. And doing this is called overflow.
It seems as if you have an overflow bug. Iterable value i first becomes negative, and eventually 0, thus you get java.lang.ArithmeticException: / by zero. If your computer can loop 10 million statements a second, this would take 1h 10min to reproduce, so I leave it as assumption an not a proof.
This is also reason trivially simple statements like a+b can produce bugs.
How to fix it?
package margusmartseppcode.From_1_to_9;
public class Problem_3 {
static long lpf(long nr) {
long max = 0;
for (long i = 2; i <= nr / i; i++)
while (nr % i == 0) {
max = i;
nr = nr / i;
}
return nr > 1 ? nr : max;
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
System.out.println(lpf(600851475143L));
}
}
You might think: "So how does this work?"
Well my tough process went like:
(Dynamical programming approach) If i had list of primes x {2,3,5,7,11,13,17, ...} up to value xi > nr / 2, then finding largest prime factor is trivial:
I start from the largest prime, and start testing if devision reminder with my number is zero, if it is, then that is the answer.
If after looping all the elements, I did not find my answer, my number must be a prime itself.
(Brute force, with filters) I assumed, that
my numbers largest prime factor is small (under 10 million).
if my numbers is a multiple of some number, then I can reduce loop size by that multiple.
I used the second approach here.
Note however, that if my number would be just little off and one of {600851475013, 600851475053, 600851475067, 600851475149, 600851475151}, then my approach assumptions would fail and program would take ridiculously long time to run. If computer could execute 10m statements per second it would take 6.954 days, to find the right answer.
In your brute force approach, just generating a list of factors would take longer - assuming you do not run out of memory before.
Is there a better way?
Sure, in Mathematica you could write it as:
P3[x_] := FactorInteger[x][[-1, 1]]
P3[600851475143]
or just FactorInteger[600851475143], and lookup the largest value.
This works because in Mathematica you have arbitrary size integers. Java also has arbitrary size integer class called BigInteger.
Apart from the BigInteger problem mentioned by Jon Skeet, note the following:
you only need to test factors up to sqrt(num)
each time you find a factor, divide num by that factor, and then test that factor again
there's really no need to use a collection to store the primes in advance
My solution (which was originally written in Perl) would look something like this in Java:
long n = 600851475143L; // the original input
long s = (long)Math.sqrt(n); // no need to test numbers larger than this
long f = 2; // the smallest factor to test
do {
if (n % f == 0) { // check we have a factor
n /= f; // this is our new number to test
s = (long)Math.sqrt(n); // and our range is smaller again
} else { // find next possible divisor
f = (f == 2) ? 3 : f + 2;
}
} while (f < s); // required result is in "n"

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