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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;
}

What would be the solution for this question if it had strong test cases?

https://www.codechef.com/problems/PRIME1
If you don't wish to open the link here's a short description of the question below :
This problem asks us to print all prime number within a given range.
There are 10 test cases and each one will provide us a start and end value of a range.
The start and end of this range can take values between 1 and 10^9.
The difference between the start and end values is 10^5 or lesser.
The time limit for the problem is 2 seconds. (that is, for all 10 test cases together)
My thinking on this:
A common estimate is that the online judge used by Codechef can perform ~10^7 operations in 1 second.
We have 10 test cases and in the worst case each one will have a range of 10^5 (since that's the max range given). Now,
10*(10^5)= 10^6 , which is the max number of operations we can perform in 1 second, so for each number in the range we must identify if it is prime in O(1).
Approaches:
1. Simple method for testing primality - Iterate through all numbers from 2 to n-1 and for every number check if it divides n
Ans: Won't work because for the worst case,
= (numbers of the highest size) * (total numbers in max range) * (total test cases)
= (10^9 * 10^5) * 10
= 10^15
2. Square root method to check if prime
Ans: Won't work because, in the worst case,
= (calculating sq. root of numbers of size 10^9) * (total numbers in max range) * (total test cases)
= (~10^4) * (10^5) * 10
= 10^10
3. Using Sieve of Eratosthenes
Precompute primes from 1 to 32000 (this number because it is approx the sq. root of 10^9)
Then to check of a value within the range is primeor not-
if value is between 1 and 32000
directly refer the precomputed value
else
try dividing that value by all precomputed primes, if it divides evenly then its not a prime
Ans: won't work because, in the worst case,
= (number of primes between 1 and 32000) *(total numbers in max range) * (total test cases)
= (3234) * (10^5) * (10)
= 10^9
Code for approach 3:
import java.util.*;
import java.io.*;
class Main
{
static ArrayList<Integer> sieve(ArrayList<Integer> primes)
{
int[] prime=new int[32001];
for(int i=2; i<32001; i++)
{
if(prime[i]==0)
{
for(int j=i+i; j<32001; j+=i)
{
prime[j]=1;
}
}
}
for(int i=2; i<32001; i++)
{
if(prime[i]==0)
{
primes.add(i);
}
}
return primes;
}
public static void main(String[] args)
{
int t,m,n,flag;
ArrayList<Integer> primes= new ArrayList<Integer>();
FastReader scanner= new FastReader();
t=scanner.nextInt();
primes= sieve(primes);
while(t-- > 0)
{
m=scanner.nextInt();
n=scanner.nextInt();
for(int i=m; i<=n; i++)
{
if(i < 32001)
{
if(primes.contains(i))
{
System.out.println(i);
}
}
else
{
flag=0;
for(int j=0; j<primes.size(); j++)
{
if(i%primes.get(j) == 0)
{
flag=1;
break;
}
}
if(flag==0)
{
System.out.println(i);
}
}
}
System.out.println();
}
}
}
While approach 1 obviously didn't work, approach 2 and 3 surprisingly passed!
I'm guessing it passed because the test cases for the problem were weak.
A strong test case would be something like:
10
999900000 1000000000
999899999 999999999
999899998 999999998
999899997 999999997
999899996 999999996
999899995 999999995
999899994 999999994
999899993 999999993
999899992 999999992
999899991 999999991
I ran approach 3 for this test case and it is always taking more than 2 seconds to compute.
If this question did have strong test cases, what would be the correct approach to solve it with the given constraints?

If you going to try figure out prime numbers in a range use the Sieve of Eratosthene algorithm. The basic premise of Sieve is that give a range of numbers you eliminate all numbers that are multiples of prime factors (i.e once we establish that 2 is prime, we eliminate all its multiples ...4, 6, 8, etc)
A implementation of this would be as follows:
private void printPrimes(int max) {
int [] prime = new int[max + 1];
for (int i = 1; i <= max; i++) {
prime[i] = i; // Assume everything is prime initially
}
// if number is prime, then multiples of that factor are not prime
for (int f = 2; f * f <= max; f++) {
if (prime[f] != 0) {
for (int j = f; f * j <= max; j++) {
prime[f * j] = 0;
}
}
}
int counter = 0;
for (int i = 1; i <= max; i++) {
if (prime[i] != 0) counter++;
}
prime = Arrays.stream(prime).filter(i -> i != 0).toArray();
System.out.println("There are " + counter + " primes between 1 and " + max);
System.out.println(Arrays.toString(prime));
}

project euler #10, java, correct for small numbers

*disclaimer, when I say "I have verified this is the correct result", please interpret this as I have checked my solution against the answer according to WolframAlpha, which I consider to be pretty darn accurate.
*goal, to find the sum of all the prime numbers less than or equal to 2,000,000 (two million)
*issue, my code will output the correct result whenever my range of tested values is approximately less than or equal to
I do not output correct result once test input becomes larger than approximately 1,300,000; my output will be off...
test input: ----199,999
test output: ---1,709,600,813
correct result: 1,709,600,813
test input: ----799,999
test output: ---24,465,663,438
correct result: 24,465,663,438
test input: ----1,249,999
test output: ---57,759,511,224
correct result: 57,759,511,224
test input: ----1,499,999
test output:--- 82,075,943,263
correct result: 82,074,443,256
test input: ----1,999,999
test output:--- 142,915,828,925
correct result: 142,913,828,925
test input: ----49,999,999
test output:--- 72,619,598,630,294
correct result: 72,619,548,630,277
*my code, what's going on, why does it work for smaller inputs? I even used long, rather than int...
long n = 3;
long i = 2;
long prime = 0;
long sum = 0;
while (n <= 1999999) {
while (i <= Math.sqrt(n)) { // since a number can only be divisible by all
// numbers
// less than or equal to its square roots, we only
// check from i up through n's square root!
if (n % i != 0) { // saves computation time
i += 2; // if there's a remainder, increment i and check again
} else {
i = 3; // i doesn't need to go back to 2, because n+=2 means we'll
// only ever be checking odd numbers
n += 2; // makes it so we only check odd numbers
}
} // if there's not a remainder before i = n (meaning all numbers from 0
// to n were relatively prime) then move on
prime = n; // set the current prime to what that number n was
sum = sum + prime;
i = 3; // re-initialize i to 3
n += 2; // increment n by 2 so that we can check the next odd number
}
System.out.println(sum+2); // adding 2 because we skip it at beginning
help please :)

The problem is that you don't properly check whether the latest prime to be added to the sum is less than the limit. You have two nested loops, but you only check the limit on the outer loop:
while (n <= 1999999) {
But you don't check in the inner loop:
while (i <= Math.sqrt(n)) {
Yet you repeatedly advance to the next candidate prime (n += 2;) inside that loop. This allows the candidate prime to exceed the limit, since the limit is only checked for the very first candidate prime in each iteration of the outer loop and not for any subsequent candidate primes visited by the inner loop.
To take an example, in the case with the limit value of 1,999,999, this lets in the next prime after 1,999,999, which is 2,000,003. You'll note that the correct value, 142,913,828,922, is exactly 2,000,003 less than your result of 142,915,828,925.
A simpler structure
Here's one way the code could be structured, using a label and continue with that label to simplify structure:
public static final long primeSum(final long maximum) {
if (maximum < 2L) return 0L;
long sum = 2L;
// Put a label here so that we can skip to the next outer loop iteration.
outerloop:
for (long possPrime = 3L; possPrime <= maximum; possPrime += 2L) {
for (long possDivisor = 3L; possDivisor*possDivisor <= possPrime; possDivisor += 2L) {
// If we find a divisor, continue with the next outer loop iteration.
if (possPrime % possDivisor == 0L) continue outerloop;
}
// This possible prime passed all tests, so it's an actual prime.
sum += possPrime;
}
return sum;
}

Perfect Number Performance

I have a solution for the Kattis Problem https://open.kattis.com/problems/almostperfect. The solution is accepted, but the runtime is too long (>1.00s).
I tried everything to solve this issue. What can I do to further improve the performance of my code?
import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.util.Scanner;
import java.io.*;
import java.util.*;
public class almostperfect {
public static int perfect(int number){
// 2 = perfect
// 1 = almost perfect
// 0 = not perfect
int sum = 0;
int b = 0;
for(int i=1;i<number;i++)
{
if(number%i==0)
{
sum = sum + i;
}
}
if(sum == number){
b = 2;
} else if(Math.abs(sum-number)<=2){
b = 1;
}
return b;
}
public static void main(String[] args)
{
Scanner scan = new Scanner(System.in);
ArrayList<Integer> input = new ArrayList<Integer>();
int a;
int status;
while(scan.hasNextLong()){
input.add((int) scan.nextLong());
}
for(int i=0; i<input.size(); i++){
a = input.get(i);
status = perfect(a);
if(status==2){
System.out.println(a+" perfect");
} else if (status==1){
System.out.println(a+" almost perfect");
} else {
System.out.println(a+" not perfect");
}
}
}}

When you calculate the divisors of number, you don't have to loop from 1 to number, but to the square root of number. Take 100 for example - if 2 is a dividor of 100, so is 100/2.
int sum = 1; //1 is always a divisor
int b = 0;
int sqr = (int)Math.sqrt(number);
for(int i=2;i< sqr;i++)
{
if(number%i==0)
{
sum = sum + i;
sum = sum + number/i;
}
}
//Check what happens for sqr - if it's a divisor, add it only once
if (sqr * sqr == number)
sum += sqr;

Your code is fine, what is not fine is the method of finding the factors for the number it implements. You need to be smarter than brute force checking every possible number smaller than number if it is a factor.
First, obviously 1 is always a factor, since any number divides by 1 without a remainder. Also, by definition the number itself is not a factor. This restricts factors to be found to the range (2 ... n-1).
Second, if you find a divisor, then the dividend is also a divisor:
dividend = number / divisor -> implies: dividend is also a divisor
This means divisors are always found in pairs (dividend is also a divisor, making the pair). The one exception that must be accounted for is that dividend may be the same as dividend (e.g. number = 9, divisor = 3 -> dividend = 3). This can be exploited, leading to:
Third, when starting testing from the smallest possible divisor (2), the first dividend you find is the largest divisor possible, with dividends decreasing steadily while you increase the tested divisor. This means there is no need to explicitly check for divisors that are found as dividend. That means the upper testing limit would be where divisor and dividend become equal, in other words the root of number.
As stated for the problem in the link, numbers may be in range 1 ... 1E9. Your brute force method needs 1 billion tests for 1E9, while the smart version exploiting above properties, only needs 31621. Thats about factor 30000 faster!

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"