while loop, while a is not in the interval [a,b] run - python

Im setting up a while loop which should run until my value zero is equal to 0(or a very small interval near zero).
how is this written i python?
while (zero != 0 +/- k):
if zero > 0:
gamma = gamma+zero/100
if zero < 0:
gamma = gamma-zero/100

Python is a funny beast here, you can write comparisons in the "mathematical way":
while -k < zero < k:
...

You could use the built-in function abs (absolute value):
while abs(zero) > k:
gamma = gamma + abs(zero)/100
You don't need your if checks then.

Related

Fix the solution of "Binary period"

I found this task and completely stuck with its solution.
A non-empty zero-indexed string S consisting of Q characters is given. The period of this string is the smallest positive integer P such that:
P ≤ Q / 2 and S[K] = S[K+P] for 0 ≤ K < Q − P.
For example, 7 is the period of “abracadabracadabra”. A positive integer M is the binary period of a positive integer N if M is the period of the binary representation of N.
For example, 1651 has the binary representation of "110011100111". Hence, its binary period is 5. On the other hand, 102 does not have a binary period, because its binary representation is “1100110” and it does not have a period.
Consider above scenarios & write a function in Python which will accept an integer N as the parameter. Given a positive integer N, the function returns the binary period of N or −1 if N does not have a binary period.
The attached code is still incorrect on some inputs (9, 11, 13, 17 etc). The goal is to find and fix the bugs in the implementation. You can modify at most 2 line.
def binary_period(n):
d = [0] * 30
l = 0
while n > 0:
d[l] = n % 2
n //= 2
l += 1
for p in range(1, 1 + l):
ok = True
for i in range(l - p):
if d[i] != d[i + p]:
ok = False
break
if ok:
return p
return -1
I was given this piece of code in an interview.
The aim of the exercice is to see where lies the bug.
As an input of the function, you will type the integer to see the binary period of it. As an example solution(4) will give you a binary number of 0011.
However, the question is the following: What is the bug?
The bug in this occasion is not some crash and burn code, rather a behavior that should happen and in the code, do not happen.
It is known as a logical error in the code. Logical error is the error when code do not break but doesn't fullfill the requirements.
Using a brute force on the code will not help as there are a billion possibilities.
However if you run the code, let's say from solutions(1) to solutions(100), you will see that the code runs without any glitch. Yet if you are looking at the code, it should return -1 if there are errors.
The code is not givin any -1 even if you run solutions to a with bigger number like 10000.
The bug here lies in the -1 that is not being triggered.
So let's go step by step on the code.
Could it be the while part?
while n > 0:
d[l] = n % 2
n //= 2
l += 1
If you look at the code, it is doing what it should be doing, changing the number given to a binary number, even if it is doing from a backward position. Instead of having 1011, you have 1101 but it does the job.
The issue lies rather in that part
for p in range(1, 1 + l):
ok = True
for i in range(l - p):
if d[i] != d[i + p]:
ok = False
break
if ok:
return p
return -1
It is not returning -1.
if you put some print on some part of the code like this, this would give you this
for p in range(1, 1 + l):
ok = True
for i in range(l - p):
print('l, which works as an incrementor is substracted to p of the first loop',p,l-p)
if d[i] != d[i + p]:
ok = False
break
if ok:
return p
return -1
If you run the whole script, actually, you can see that it is never ending even if d[i] is not equal anymore to d[i+p].
But why?
The reason is because l, the incrementor was built on an integer division. Because of that, you need to do a 1+l//2.
Which gives you the following
def solution(n):
d = [0] * 30
l = 0
while n > 0:
d[l] = n % 2
n //= 2
l += 1
for p in range(1, 1 + l//2): #here you put l//2
ok = True
print('p est ',p)
for i in range(l - p):
if d[i] != d[i + p]:
ok = False
break
if ok:
return
Now if you run the code with solutions(5) for example, the bug should be fixed and you should have -1.
Addendum:
This test is a difficult one with a not easy algorithm to deal with in very short time, with variables that does not make any sense.
First step would be to ask the following questions:
What is the input of the algorithm? In this case, it is an integer.
What is the expected output? In this case, a -1
Is it a logical error or a crash and burn kind of error? In this case, it is a logical error.
These step-by-step (heuristic) will set you on the right direction to debug a problem.
Following up Andy's solution and checking #hdlopez comment, there is a border case when passing int.MaxVal=2147483647
and if you do not increase the array size to 31 (instead of 30). The function throws an index out of range, so two places need to be modified:
1- int[] d = new int[31]; //changed 30 to 31 (unsigned integer)
2- for (p = 1; p < 1 + l / 2; ++p) //added division to l per statement, P ≤ Q / 2

Cube root of a very large number using only math library

I want to compute the cube root of an extremely huge number in Python3.
I've tried the function below, as well the Python syntax x ** (1 / n), but they both yield an error:
OverflowError: (34, 'Numerical result out of range')
I really need to compute the cube-root to solve a problem in cryptography. I can't use any modules other than math.
Binary search:
def find_invpow(x,n):
"""Finds the integer component of the n'th root of x,
an integer such that y ** n <= x < (y + 1) ** n.
"""
high = 1
while high ** n < x:
high *= 2
low = high/2
while low < high:
mid = (low + high) // 2
if low < mid and mid**n < x:
low = mid
elif high > mid and mid**n > x:
high = mid
else:
return mid
return mid + 1
An example number that causes the error is:
num = 68057481137876648248241485864416419482650225630788641878663638907856305801266787545152598107424503316701887749720220603415974959561242770647206405075854693761748645436474693912889174270087450524201874301881144063774246565393171209785613106940896565658550145896382997905000280819929717554126192912435958881333015570058980589421883357999956417864406416064784421639624577881872069579492555550080496871742644626220376297153908107132546228975057498201139955163867578898758090850986317974370013630474749530052454762925065538161450906977368449669946613816
Result should be this (which is what gmpy2 finds and its correct - I've validated):
408280486712458018941011423246208684000839238529670746836313590220206147266723174123590947072617862777039701335841276608156219318663582175921048087813907313165314488199897222817084206
Your issue is that you're not sticking strictly to integers. Python's integers are dynamically sized, so they can fit any size of value you want, without losing any precision. But floating point numbers have an inherently limited precision.
When you do low = high/2, you're getting a floating point calculation, even if you don't intend it. Since low is a float, mid ends up being one too, and when you test the cube of mid, the float ends up overflowing and you get an exception.
If you change the first computation of low to use // instead of /, you'll stick with integers throughout the computation, and you won't get an overflow exception. With just that single change, I was able to run your code and get the result you are expecting:
>>> find_invpow(num, 3)
408280486712458018941011423246208684000839238529670746836313590220206147266723174123590947072617862777039701335841276608156219318663582175921048087813907313165314488199897222817084206

MIT 6.00 Newton's Method in Python 3

This is part of the second problem set for MIT's OCW 6.00 Intro to Computation and Programming using Python. First, I created a function that evaluates a polynomial for a given x value. Then a function that computes the derivative for a given polynomial. Using those, I created a function that evaluates the first derivative for a given polynomial and x value.
Then I tried to create a function to estimate the root of any given polynomial within a tolerance (epsilon).
Test case is at bottom with expected output.
I am new to programming and new to python, so I have included some comments in the code to explain what I think the code should be doing.
def evaluate_poly(poly, x):
""" Computes the polynomial function for a given value x. Returns that value."""
answer = poly[0]
for i in range (1, len(poly)):
answer = answer + poly[i] * x**i
return answer
def compute_deriv(poly):
"""
#Computes and returns the derivative of a polynomial function. If the
#derivative is 0, returns (0.0,)."""
dpoly = ()
for i in range(1,len(poly)):
dpoly = dpoly + (poly[i]*i,)
return dpoly
def df(poly, x):
"""Computes and returns the solution as a float to the derivative of a polynomial function
"""
dx = evaluate_poly(compute_deriv(poly), x)
#dpoly = compute_deriv(poly)
#dx = evaluate_poly(dpoly, x)
return dx
def compute_root(poly, x_0, epsilon):
"""
Uses Newton's method to find and return a root of a polynomial function.
Returns a float containing the root"""
iteration = 0
fguess = evaluate_poly(poly, x_0) #evaluates poly for first guess
print(fguess)
x_guess = x_0 #initialize x_guess
if fguess > 0 and fguess < epsilon: #if solution for first guess is close enough to root return first guess
return x_guess
else:
while fguess > 0 and fguess > epsilon:
iteration+=1
x_guess = x_0 - (evaluate_poly(poly,x_0)/df(poly, x_0))
fguess = evaluate_poly(poly, x_guess)
if fguess > 0 and fguess < epsilon:
break #fguess where guess is close enough to root, breaks while loop, skips else, return x_guess
else:
x_0 = x_guess #guess again with most recent guess as x_0 next time through while loop
print(iteration)
return x_guess
#Example:
poly = (-13.39, 0.0, 17.5, 3.0, 1.0) #x^4 + 3x^3 + 17.5x^2 - 13.39
x_0 = 0.1
epsilon = .0001
print (compute_root(poly, x_0, epsilon))
#answer should be 0.80679075379635201
The first 3 functions return correct answers, but compute_root (Newton's method) does not seem to enter the while loop because when I run the cell print(iteration) prints 0. I would think that since if fguess > 0 and fguess < epsilon: should return false for the test case (statement print(fguess) prints -13.2119), the interpreter would go to else and enter the while loop until it finds a solution that is within epsilon of 0.
I have tried eliminating the first if else conditions so that I only have one return statement and I get the same problem.
What could be causing the function to skip the else case / while loop altogether? I'm stumped!
Thanks for looking and/or helping!
It seems to be just a small oversight. Notice how fguess is printed with a value of -13.2119. In your while condition (in else from compute_root) you require fguess > 0 and fguess < epsilon, which is not met so nothing is done further and you exit without iterations.
Instead:
while fguess < 0 or fguess > epsilon:
Will give you what you need:
-13.2119
7
0.806790753796352

Generating evenly distributed bits, using approximation

I'm trying to generate 0 or 1 with 50/50 chance of any using random.uniform instead of random.getrandbits.
Here's what I have
0 if random.uniform(0, 1e-323) == 0.0 else 1
But if I run this long enough, the average is ~70% to generate 1. As seem here:
sum(0 if random.uniform(0, 1e-323) == 0.0
else 1
for _ in xrange(1000)) / 1000.0 # --> 0.737
If I change it to 1e-324 it will always be 0. And if I change it to 1e-322, the average will be ~%90.
I made a dirty program that will try to find the sweet spot between 1e-322 and 1e-324, by dividing and multiplying it several times:
v = 1e-323
n_runs = 100000
target = n_runs/2
result = 0
while True:
result = sum(0 if random.uniform(0, v) == 0.0 else 1 for _ in xrange(n_runs))
if result > target:
v /= 1.5
elif result < target:
v *= 1.5 / 1.4
else:
break
print v
This end ups with 4.94065645841e-324
But it still will be wrong if I ran it enough times.
Is there I way to find this number without the dirty script I wrote? I know that Python has a intern min float value, show in sys.float_info.min, which in my PC is 2.22507385851e-308. But I don't see how to use it to solve this problem.
Sorry if this feels more like a puzzle than a proper question, but I'm not able to answer it myself.
I know that Python has a intern min float value, show in sys.float_info.min, which in my PC is 2.22507385851e-308. But I don't see how to use it to solve this problem.
2.22507385851e-308 is not the smallest positive float value, it is the smallest positive normalized float value. The smallest positive float value is 2-52 times that, that is, near 5e-324.
2-52 is called the “machine epsilon” and it is usual to call the “min” of a floating-point type a value that is nether that which is least of all comparable values (that is -inf), nor the least of finite values (that is -max), nor the least of positive values.
Then, the next problem you face is that random.uniform is not uniform to that level. It probably works ok when you pass it a normalized number, but if you pass it the smallest positive representable float number, the computation it does with it internally may be very approximative and lead it to behave differently than the documentation says. Although it appears to work surprisingly ok according to the results of your “dirty script”.
Here's the random.uniform implementation, according to the source:
from os import urandom as _urandom
BPF = 53 # Number of bits in a float
RECIP_BPF = 2**-BPF
def uniform(self, a, b):
"Get a random number in the range [a, b) or [a, b] depending on rounding."
return a + (b-a) * self.random()
def random(self):
"""Get the next random number in the range [0.0, 1.0)."""
return (int.from_bytes(_urandom(7), 'big') >> 3) * RECIP_BPF
So, your problem boils down to finding a number b that will give 0 when multiplied by a number less than 0.5 and another result when multiplied by a number larger than 0.5. I've found out that, on my machine, that number is 5e-324.
To test it, I've made the following script:
from random import uniform
def test():
runs = 1000000
results = [0, 0]
for i in range(runs):
if uniform(0, 5e-324) == 0:
results[0] += 1
else:
results[1] += 1
print(results)
Which returned results consistent with a 50% probability:
>>> test()
[499982, 500018]
>>> test()
[499528, 500472]
>>> test()
[500307, 499693]

Finding the root of an equation with a constraint

In python, I would like to find the roots of equations of the form:
-x*log(x) + (1-x)*log(n) - (1-x)*log(1 - x) - k = 0
where n and k are parameters that will be specified.
An additional constraint on the roots is that x >= (1-x)/n. So just for what it's worth, I'll be filtering out roots that don't satisfy that.
My first attempt was to use scipy.optimize.fsolve (note that I'm just setting k and n to be 0 and 1 respectively):
def f(x):
return -x*log(x) + (1-x)*log(1) - (1-x)*log(1-x)
fsolve(f, 1)
Using math.log, I got value-errors because I was supplying bad input to log. Using numpy.log gave me some divide by zeros and invalid values in multiply.
I adjusted f as so, just to see what it would do:
def f(x):
if x <= 0:
return 1000
if x >= 1:
return 2000
return -x*log(x) + (1-x)*log(1) - (1-x)*log(1-x)
Now I get
/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/scipy/optimize/minpack.py:221: RuntimeWarning: The iteration is not making good progress, as measured by the
improvement from the last ten iterations.
warnings.warn(msg, RuntimeWarning)
Using python, how can I solve for x for various n and k parameters in the original equation?
fsolve also allows guesses to be inserted for where to start. My suggestion would be to plot the equation and have the user type a initial guess either with the mouse or via text to use as an initial guess. You may also want to change the out of bounds values:
if x <= 0:
return 1000 + abs(x)
if x >= 1:
return 2000 + abs(x)
This way the function has a slope outside of the region of interest that will guide the solver back into the interesting region.

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