Develop Reference

Summation of primes : Using Generator vs w/o Generator

Project Euler 10th problem:
Find the sum of all the primes below two million.
Well I came up with two solutions :
USING GENERATOR FUNCTION
def gen_primes():
n = 2
primes = []
while True:
for p in primes:
if n % p == 0:
break
else:
primes.append(n)
yield n
n += 1
flag = True
sum=0
p=gen_primes()
while flag:
prime=p.__next__()
if prime > 2000000:
flag = False
else:
sum+=prime
print(sum)
W/O GENERATOR
def prime(number):
if number ==1:
return -1
else:
for a in (range(1,int(number**0.5)+1))[::2]:
if number%a==0 and a!=1:
return False
else:
return True
count=2
for i in (range(1,2000000))[::2]:
if prime(i)==True and i!=1:
count+=i
else:
continue
print(count)
Surprisingly, the latter (w/o g) takes 7.4 seconds whereas the former (using g) takes around 10 minutes !!!
Why is it so? Thought the generator would perform better because of fewer steps.

Your generator is doing a lot of unnecessary work. It checks all primes up to n when it only needs to check primes up to the square root of n. Here is a modified version of your generator function with the unnecessary work removed:
from time import time
t = time()
def gen_primes():
primes = []
yield 2
n = 3
while True:
is_prime = True
upper_limit = n ** .5
for p in primes:
if n % p == 0:
is_prime = False
break
elif p > upper_limit:
break
if is_prime:
primes.append(n)
yield n
n += 2 # only need to check divisibility by odd numbers
sum = 0
for prime in gen_primes():
if prime > 2_000_000:
break
else:
sum += prime
print("time:", time() - t)
print(sum)
This takes 2.3 seconds on my computer. The version without the generator takes 4.8 seconds on my computer.
If you're interested in a much more efficient algorithm for finding prime numbers, check out the Sieve of Eratosthenes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sieve_of_Eratosthenes

Here's a rework of your generator code that's almost twice as fast as the non-generator code. Similar to #DanielGiger's solution (+1) but attempts to be simpler and possibly a hair faster. It uses multiple squaring instead of a single square root (may or may not win out) and doesn't need a boolean flag:
def gen_primes():
yield 2
primes = [2]
number = 3
while True:
for prime in primes:
if prime * prime > number:
yield number
primes.append(number)
break
if number % prime == 0:
break
number += 2
total = 0
generator = gen_primes()
while True:
prime = next(generator)
if prime > 2_000_000:
break
total += prime
print(total)
Here's an equivalent rework of your non-generator code that also attempts to be simpler and just a hair faster. My rule of thumb is to deal with 2 and less as special cases and then write a clean odd divisor check:
def is_prime(number):
if number < 2:
return False
if number % 2 == 0:
return number == 2
for divisor in range(3, int(number**0.5) + 1, 2):
if number % divisor == 0:
return False
return True
total = 2
for i in range(3, 2_000_000, 2):
if is_prime(i):
total += i
print(total)
Also, your code generates an entire range of numbers and then throws away the even numbers -- we can use the third argument to range() to generate only the odd numbers in the first place.
In the end, the use of a generator has nothing to do with the general performance of your two solutions. You can rewrite your second solution as a generator:
def gen_primes():
yield 2
number = 3
while True:
for divisor in range(3, int(number**0.5) + 1, 2):
if number % divisor == 0:
break
else: # no break
yield number
number += 2
The difference between the two solutions is one uses only primes as trial divisors (at the cost of storage) and the other uses odd numbers (pseudoprimes) as trial divisors (with no storage cost). Time-wise, the one that does fewer trial divisions, wins.

Making a prime generator

This is supposed to be a prime generator. I try running this but it doesn't print out the integers. The program will also end right away. I don't know if its running
def prime_gen():
start = 1
while start:
if start % start == 0:
print(start)
start += 1

First what is a prime? A number that have no divisors but itself.
The easy way is to load that numbers, starting by two and check if that number can't be divided by all the previous ones, if its so then you got a new one; you can make it a generator by using yield instead of return
def prime_gen():
primes = [2]
yield 2
n = 3
while True:
for p in primes:
if n % p == 0:
n += 1
break
else:
primes.append(n)
yield n
Example:
pg = prime_gen()
next(pg)
2
next(pg)
3
next(pg)
5
next(pg)
7
next(pg)
11

You have 2 main issues here:
Your algorithm doesn't calculate primes - it runs infinitely (while start), and prints a number when number % number == 0 (aka number modulo number) which is always true. So this is an infinite loop printing the numbers from 1 up.
you never call prime_gen() which is why the program doesn't do anything.
You have created a function but did not call it.
for a nice way of calculating primes, take a look at Sieve of Eratosthenes (Wikipedia).

You can do something like:
def prime_gen(limit):
current = 2 # 1 is not exactly prime
primes = []
while current <= limit:
isPrime = True
for p in primes:
if current % p == 0:
isPrime = False
break
if isPrime:
primes.append(current)
print current, ", ",
current += 1
return primes

finding the lowest collatz sequence that gives more that 65 primes

I have a task where I need to find the lowest Collatz sequence that contains more than 65 prime numbers in Python.
For example, the Collatz sequence for 19 is:
19, 58, 29, 88, 44, 22, 11, 34, 17, 52, 26, 13, 40, 20, 10, 5, 16, 8,
4, 2, 1
This sequence contains 7 prime numbers.
I also need to use memoization so it doesn't have to run a "year" to find it. I found code for memoization of Collatz sequences, but I can't figure out how to get it to work when I need only the prime numbers.
Here is the Collatz memoization code that I found:
lookup = {}
def countTerms(n):
if n not in lookup:
if n == 1:
lookup[n] = 1
elif not n % 2:
lookup[n] = countTerms(n / 2)[0] + 1
else:
lookup[n] = countTerms(n*3 + 1)[0] + 1
return lookup[n], n
And here is my tester for prime:
def is_prime(a):
for i in xrange(2,a):
if a%i==0:
#print a, " is not a prime number"
return False
if a==1:
return False
else:
return True

Your existing code is incorrectly indented. I assume this task is a homework task, so I won't post a complete working solution, but I'll give you some helpful snippets.
First, here's a slightly more efficient primality tester. Rather than testing if all numbers less than a are factors of a, it just tests up to the square root of a.
def is_prime(a):
for i in xrange(2, int(1 + a ** 0.5)):
if a % i == 0:
return False
return True
Note that this function returns True for a = 1. That's ok, since you don't need to test 1: you can pre-load it into the lookup dict:
lookup = {1:0}
Your countTerms function needs to be modified slightly so that it only adds one to the lookup count when the current n is prime. In Python, False has a numeric value of 0 and True has a numeric value of 1. That's very handy here:
def count_prime_terms(n):
''' Count the number of primes terms in a Collatz sequence '''
if n not in lookup:
if n % 2:
next_n = n * 3 + 1
else:
next_n = n // 2
lookup[n] = count_prime_terms(next_n) + is_prime(n)
return lookup[n]
I've changed the function name to be more Pythonic.
FWIW, the first Collatz sequence containing 65 or more primes actually contains 67 primes. Its seed number is over 1.8 million, and the highest number that requires primality testing when checking all sequences up to that seed is 151629574372. At completion, the lookup dict contains 3920492 entries.
In response to James Mills's comments regarding recursion, I've written a non-recursive version, and to make it easy to see that the iterative and the recursive versions both produce the same results I'm posting a complete working program. I said above that I wasn't going to do that, but I figure that it should be ok to do so now, since spørreren has already written their program using the info I supplied in my original answer.
I fully agree that it's good to avoid recursion except in situations where it's appropriate to the problem domain (eg, tree traversal). Python discourages recursion - it cannot optimize tail-call recursion and it imposes a recursion depth limit (although that limit can be modified, if desired).
This Collatz sequence prime counting algorithm is naturally stated recursively, but it's not too hard to do iteratively - we just need a list to temporarily hold the sequence while the primality of all its members are being determined. True, this list takes up RAM, but it's (probably) much more efficient space-wise than the stack frame requirements that the recursive version needs.
The recursive version reaches a recursion depth of 343 when solving the problem in the OP. This is well within the default limit but it's still not good, and if you want to search for sequences containing much larger numbers of primes, you will hit that limit.
The iterative & recursive versions run at roughly the same speed (at least, they do so on my machine). To solve the problem stated in the OP they both take a little under 2 minutes. This is significantly faster than my original solution, mostly due to optimizations in primality testing.
The basic Collatz sequence generation step already needs to determine if a number is odd or even. Clearly, if we already know that a number is even then there's no need to test if it's a prime. :) And we can also eliminate tests for even factors in the is_prime function. We can handle the fact that 2 is prime by simply loading the result for 2 into the lookup cache.
On a related note, when searching for the first sequence containing a given number of primes we don't need to test any of the sequences that start at an even number. Even numbers (apart from 2) don't increase the prime count of a sequence, and since the first odd number in such a sequence will be lower than our current number its results will already be in the lookup cache, assuming we start our search from 3. And if we don't start searching from 3 we just need to make sure our starting seed is low enough so that we don't accidentally miss the first sequence containing the desired number of primes. Adopting this strategy not only reduces the time needed, it also reduces the number of entries in the lookup` cache.
#!/usr/bin/env python
''' Find the 1st Collatz sequence containing a given number of prime terms
From http://stackoverflow.com/q/29920691/4014959
Written by PM 2Ring 2015.04.29
[Seed == 1805311, prime count == 67]
'''
import sys
def is_prime(a):
''' Test if odd `a` >= 3 is prime '''
for i in xrange(3, int(1 + a ** 0.5), 2):
if not a % i:
return 0
return 1
#Track the highest number generated so far; use a list
# so we don't have to declare it as global...
hi = [2]
#Cache for sequence prime counts. The key is the sequence seed,
# the value is the number of primes in that sequence.
lookup = {1:0, 2:1}
def count_prime_terms_iterative(n):
''' Count the number of primes terms in a Collatz sequence
Iterative version '''
seq = []
while n not in lookup:
if n > hi[0]:
hi[0] = n
if n % 2:
seq.append((n, is_prime(n)))
n = n * 3 + 1
else:
seq.append((n, 0))
n = n // 2
count = lookup[n]
for n, isprime in reversed(seq):
count += isprime
lookup[n] = count
return count
def count_prime_terms_recursive(n):
''' Count the number of primes terms in a Collatz sequence
Recursive version '''
if n not in lookup:
if n > hi[0]:
hi[0] = n
if n % 2:
next_n = n * 3 + 1
isprime = is_prime(n)
else:
next_n = n // 2
isprime = 0
lookup[n] = count_prime_terms(next_n) + isprime
return lookup[n]
def find_seed(numprimes, start):
''' Find the seed of the 1st Collatz sequence containing
`numprimes` primes, starting from odd seed `start` '''
i = start
mcount = 0
print 'seed, prime count, highest term, dict size'
while mcount < numprimes:
count = count_prime_terms(i)
if count > mcount:
mcount = count
print i, count, hi[0], len(lookup)
i += 2
#count_prime_terms = count_prime_terms_recursive
count_prime_terms = count_prime_terms_iterative
def main():
if len(sys.argv) > 1:
numprimes = int(sys.argv[1])
else:
print 'Usage: %s numprimes [start]' % sys.argv[0]
exit()
start = int(sys.argv[2]) if len(sys.argv) > 2 else 3
#Round `start` up to the next odd number
if start % 2 == 0:
start += 1
find_seed(numprimes, start)
if __name__ == '__main__':
main()
When run with
$ ./CollatzPrimes.py 65
the output is
seed, prime count, highest term, dict size
3 3 16 8
7 6 52 18
19 7 160 35
27 25 9232 136
97 26 9232 230
171 28 9232 354
231 29 9232 459
487 30 39364 933
763 32 250504 1626
1071 36 250504 2197
4011 37 1276936 8009
6171 43 8153620 12297
10971 44 27114424 21969
17647 48 27114424 35232
47059 50 121012864 94058
99151 51 1570824736 198927
117511 52 2482111348 235686
202471 53 17202377752 405273
260847 55 17202377752 522704
481959 59 24648077896 966011
963919 61 56991483520 1929199
1564063 62 151629574372 3136009
1805311 67 151629574372 3619607

Let's begin with a function that determines if a number is prime; we will use the Miller-Rabin algorithm, which is faster than trial division for the size of numbers that we will be dealing with:
from random import randint
def isPrime(n, k=5): # miller-rabin
if n < 2: return False
for p in [2,3,5,7,11,13,17,19,23,29]:
if n % p == 0: return n == p
s, d = 0, n-1
while d % 2 == 0:
s, d = s+1, d/2
for i in range(k):
x = pow(randint(2, n-1), d, n)
if x == 1 or x == n-1: continue
for r in range(1, s):
x = (x * x) % n
if x == 1: return False
if x == n-1: break
else: return False
return True
Since we want to find the first number that satisfies the criteria, our strategy will be to start from 2 and work our way up, storing results as we go. We prime the cache (that's a bad pun, sorry) with the prime counts in the Collatz sequences from 0 to 2:
primeCount = [0,0,1]
Function pCount(n) counts the primes in the Collatz sequence for n. As soon as the current value of the sequence k drops below n, we look up the result in the cache. Until then, we test each odd number in the Collatz sequence for primality and increment the prime count p if appropriate. When we have the prime count for n, we add it to the cache and return it.
def pCount(n):
k, p = n, 0
while k > 0:
if k < n:
t = p + primeCount[k]
primeCount.append(t)
return t
elif k % 2 == 0:
k = k / 2
elif isPrime(k):
p = p + 1
k = 3*k + 1
else:
k = 3*k + 1
Now it's just a matter of computing the prime counts for each n, in order starting from 3, stopping when the prime count exceeds 65:
n = 3
t = pCount(n)
while t < 65:
n = n + 1
t = pCount(n)
That doesn't take long, less than a minute on my computer. Here's the result:
print n
There are 67 primes in the result. If you want to see them, here is a simple function that prints the Collatz sequence for a given n:
def collatz(n):
cs = []
while n != 1:
cs.append(n)
n = 3*n+1 if n&1 else n//2
cs.append(1)
return cs
And here's the list of primes:
filter(isPrime,collatz(n))
What a fun problem of recreational mathematics!
EDIT: Since people asked about the Miller-Rabin primality tester, let me show this simple primality tester based on a 2,3,5-wheel; it does trial division by 2, 3 and 5 and by numbers that aren't multiples of 2, 3, or 5, which includes some composites, so it's a little bit less efficient that trial division by primes, but there is no need to pre-compute and store the primes, so it's much easier to use.
def isPrime(n): # 2,3,5-wheel
if n < 2: return False
wheel = [1,2,2,4,2,4,2,4,6,2,6]
w, next = 2, 0
while w * w <= n:
if n % w == 0: return False
w = w + wheel[next]
next = next + 1
if next > 10: next = 3
return True
Saying filter(isPrime,range(1000000)) identifies the 78498 primes less than a million in just a few seconds. You might want to compare timings for this primality tester compared to the Miller-Rabin tester and determine where the crossover point is in terms of runtime efficiency; I didn't do any formal timings, but it seems to solve the 65-collatz-prime problem in about the same time as the Miller-Rabin teseter. Or you might want to combine trial division with a 2,3,5-wheel up to some limit, say 1000 or 10000 or 25000, then run Miller-Rabin on the survivors; that quickly eliminates most composites, so it can run very quickly.

Beginner looking for advice/help on this code (Python) [duplicate]

I was having issues in printing a series of prime numbers from one to hundred. I can't figure our what's wrong with my code.
Here's what I wrote; it prints all the odd numbers instead of primes:
for num in range(1, 101):
for i in range(2, num):
if num % i == 0:
break
else:
print(num)
break

You need to check all numbers from 2 to n-1 (to sqrt(n) actually, but ok, let it be n).
If n is divisible by any of the numbers, it is not prime. If a number is prime, print it.
for num in range(2,101):
prime = True
for i in range(2,num):
if (num%i==0):
prime = False
if prime:
print (num)
You can write the same much shorter and more pythonic:
for num in range(2,101):
if all(num%i!=0 for i in range(2,num)):
print (num)
As I've said already, it would be better to check divisors not from 2 to n-1, but from 2 to sqrt(n):
import math
for num in range(2,101):
if all(num%i!=0 for i in range(2,int(math.sqrt(num))+1)):
print (num)
For small numbers like 101 it doesn't matter, but for 10**8 the difference will be really big.
You can improve it a little more by incrementing the range you check by 2, and thereby only checking odd numbers. Like so:
import math
print 2
for num in range(3,101,2):
if all(num%i!=0 for i in range(2,int(math.sqrt(num))+1)):
print (num)
Edited:
As in the first loop odd numbers are selected, in the second loop no
need to check with even numbers, so 'i' value can be start with 3 and
skipped by 2.
import math
print 2
for num in range(3,101,2):
if all(num%i!=0 for i in range(3,int(math.sqrt(num))+1, 2)):
print (num)

I'm a proponent of not assuming the best solution and testing it. Below are some modifications I did to create simple classes of examples by both #igor-chubin and #user448810. First off let me say it's all great information, thank you guys. But I have to acknowledge #user448810 for his clever solution, which turns out to be the fastest by far (of those I tested). So kudos to you, sir! In all examples I use a values of 1 million (1,000,000) as n.
Please feel free to try the code out.
Good luck!
Method 1 as described by Igor Chubin:
def primes_method1(n):
out = list()
for num in range(1, n+1):
prime = True
for i in range(2, num):
if (num % i == 0):
prime = False
if prime:
out.append(num)
return out
Benchmark: Over 272+ seconds
Method 2 as described by Igor Chubin:
def primes_method2(n):
out = list()
for num in range(1, n+1):
if all(num % i != 0 for i in range(2, num)):
out.append(num)
return out
Benchmark: 73.3420000076 seconds
Method 3 as described by Igor Chubin:
def primes_method3(n):
out = list()
for num in range(1, n+1):
if all(num % i != 0 for i in range(2, int(num**.5 ) + 1)):
out.append(num)
return out
Benchmark: 11.3580000401 seconds
Method 4 as described by Igor Chubin:
def primes_method4(n):
out = list()
out.append(2)
for num in range(3, n+1, 2):
if all(num % i != 0 for i in range(2, int(num**.5 ) + 1)):
out.append(num)
return out
Benchmark: 8.7009999752 seconds
Method 5 as described by user448810 (which I thought was quite clever):
def primes_method5(n):
out = list()
sieve = [True] * (n+1)
for p in range(2, n+1):
if (sieve[p]):
out.append(p)
for i in range(p, n+1, p):
sieve[i] = False
return out
Benchmark: 1.12000012398 seconds
Notes: Solution 5 listed above (as proposed by user448810) turned out to be the fastest and honestly quiet creative and clever. I love it. Thanks guys!!
EDIT: Oh, and by the way, I didn't feel there was any need to import the math library for the square root of a value as the equivalent is just (n**.5). Otherwise I didn't edit much other then make the values get stored in and output array to be returned by the class. Also, it would probably be a bit more efficient to store the results to a file than verbose and could save a lot on memory if it was just one at a time but would cost a little bit more time due to disk writes. I think there is always room for improvement though. So hopefully the code makes sense guys.
2021 EDIT: I know it's been a really long time but I was going back through my Stackoverflow after linking it to my Codewars account and saw my recently accumulated points, which which was linked to this post. Something I read in the original poster caught my eye for #user448810, so I decided to do a slight modification mentioned in the original post by filtering out odd values before appending the output array. The results was much better performance for both the optimization as well as latest version of Python 3.8 with a result of 0.723 seconds (prior code) vs 0.504 seconds using 1,000,000 for n.
def primes_method5(n):
out = list()
sieve = [True] * (n+1)
for p in range(2, n+1):
if (sieve[p] and sieve[p]%2==1):
out.append(p)
for i in range(p, n+1, p):
sieve[i] = False
return out
Nearly five years later, I might know a bit more but I still just love Python, and it's kind of crazy to think it's been that long. The post honestly feels like it was made a short time ago and at the time I had only been using python about a year I think. And it still seems relevant. Crazy. Good times.

Instead of trial division, a better approach, invented by the Greek mathematician Eratosthenes over two thousand years ago, is to sieve by repeatedly casting out multiples of primes.
Begin by making a list of all numbers from 2 to the maximum desired prime n. Then repeatedly take the smallest uncrossed number and cross out all of its multiples; the numbers that remain uncrossed are prime.
For example, consider the numbers less than 30. Initially, 2 is identified as prime, then 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28 and 30 are crossed out. Next 3 is identified as prime, then 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24, 27 and 30 are crossed out. The next prime is 5, so 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 are crossed out. And so on. The numbers that remain are prime: 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, and 29.
def primes(n):
sieve = [True] * (n+1)
for p in range(2, n+1):
if (sieve[p]):
print p
for i in range(p, n+1, p):
sieve[i] = False
An optimized version of the sieve handles 2 separately and sieves only odd numbers. Also, since all composites less than the square of the current prime are crossed out by smaller primes, the inner loop can start at p^2 instead of p and the outer loop can stop at the square root of n. I'll leave the optimized version for you to work on.

break ends the loop that it is currently in. So, you are only ever checking if it divisible by 2, giving you all odd numbers.
for num in range(2,101):
for i in range(2,num):
if (num%i==0):
break
else:
print(num)
that being said, there are much better ways to find primes in python than this.
for num in range(2,101):
if is_prime(num):
print(num)
def is_prime(n):
for i in range(2, int(math.sqrt(n)) + 1):
if n % i == 0:
return False
return True

The best way to solve the above problem would be to use the "Miller Rabin Primality Test" algorithm. It uses a probabilistic approach to find if a number is prime or not. And it is by-far the most efficient algorithm I've come across for the same.
The python implementation of the same is demonstrated below:
def miller_rabin(n, k):
# Implementation uses the Miller-Rabin Primality Test
# The optimal number of rounds for this test is 40
# See http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6325576/how-many-iterations-of-rabin-miller-should-i-use-for-cryptographic-safe-primes
# for justification
# If number is even, it's a composite number
if n == 2:
return True
if n % 2 == 0:
return False
r, s = 0, n - 1
while s % 2 == 0:
r += 1
s //= 2
for _ in xrange(k):
a = random.randrange(2, n - 1)
x = pow(a, s, n)
if x == 1 or x == n - 1:
continue
for _ in xrange(r - 1):
x = pow(x, 2, n)
if x == n - 1:
break
else:
return False
return True

Igor Chubin's answer can be improved. When testing if X is prime, the algorithm doesn't have to check every number up to the square root of X, it only has to check the prime numbers up to the sqrt(X). Thus, it can be more efficient if it refers to the list of prime numbers as it is creating it. The function below outputs a list of all primes under b, which is convenient as a list for several reasons (e.g. when you want to know the number of primes < b). By only checking the primes, it saves time at higher numbers (compare at around 10,000; the difference is stark).
from math import sqrt
def lp(b)
primes = [2]
for c in range(3,b):
e = round(sqrt(c)) + 1
for d in primes:
if d <= e and c%d == 0:
break
else:
primes.extend([c])
return primes

My way of listing primes to an entry number without too much hassle is using the property that you can get any number that is not a prime with the summation of primes.
Therefore, if you divide the entry number with all primes below it, and it is not evenly divisible by any of them, you know that you have a prime.
Of course there are still faster ways of getting the primes, but this one already performs quite well, especially because you are not dividing the entry number by any number, but quite only the primes all the way to that number.
With this code I managed on my computer to list all primes up to 100 000 in less than 4 seconds.
import time as t
start = t.clock()
primes = [2,3,5,7]
for num in xrange(3,100000,2):
if all(num%x != 0 for x in primes):
primes.append(num)
print primes
print t.clock() - start
print sum(primes)

A Python Program function module that returns the 1'st N prime numbers:
def get_primes(count):
"""
Return the 1st count prime integers.
"""
result = []
x=2
while len(result) in range(count):
i=2
flag=0
for i in range(2,x):
if x%i == 0:
flag+=1
break
i=i+1
if flag == 0:
result.append(x)
x+=1
pass
return result

A simpler and more efficient way of solving this is storing all prime numbers found previously and checking if the next number is a multiple of any of the smaller primes.
n = 1000
primes = [2]
for i in range(3, n, 2):
if not any(i % prime == 0 for prime in primes):
primes.append(i)
print(primes)
Note that any is a short circuit function, in other words, it will break the loop as soon as a truthy value is found.

we can make a list of prime numbers using sympy library
import sympy
lower=int(input("lower value:")) #let it be 30
upper=int(input("upper value:")) #let it be 60
l=list(sympy.primerange(lower,upper+1)) #[31,37,41,43,47,53,59]
print(l)

Here's a simple and intuitive version of checking whether it's a prime in a RECURSIVE function! :) (I did it as a homework assignment for an MIT class)
In python it runs very fast until 1900. IF you try more than 1900, you'll get an interesting error :) (Would u like to check how many numbers your computer can manage?)
def is_prime(n, div=2):
if div> n/2.0: return True
if n% div == 0:
return False
else:
div+=1
return is_prime(n,div)
#The program:
until = 1000
for i in range(until):
if is_prime(i):
print i
Of course... if you like recursive functions, this small code can be upgraded with a dictionary to seriously increase its performance, and avoid that funny error.
Here's a simple Level 1 upgrade with a MEMORY integration:
import datetime
def is_prime(n, div=2):
global primelist
if div> n/2.0: return True
if div < primelist[0]:
div = primelist[0]
for x in primelist:
if x ==0 or x==1: continue
if n % x == 0:
return False
if n% div == 0:
return False
else:
div+=1
return is_prime(n,div)
now = datetime.datetime.now()
print 'time and date:',now
until = 100000
primelist=[]
for i in range(until):
if is_prime(i):
primelist.insert(0,i)
print "There are", len(primelist),"prime numbers, until", until
print primelist[0:100], "..."
finish = datetime.datetime.now()
print "It took your computer", finish - now , " to calculate it"
Here are the resuls, where I printed the last 100 prime numbers found.
time and date: 2013-10-15 13:32:11.674448
There are 9594 prime numbers, until 100000
[99991, 99989, 99971, 99961, 99929, 99923, 99907, 99901, 99881, 99877, 99871, 99859, 99839, 99833, 99829, 99823, 99817, 99809, 99793, 99787, 99767, 99761, 99733, 99721, 99719, 99713, 99709, 99707, 99689, 99679, 99667, 99661, 99643, 99623, 99611, 99607, 99581, 99577, 99571, 99563, 99559, 99551, 99529, 99527, 99523, 99497, 99487, 99469, 99439, 99431, 99409, 99401, 99397, 99391, 99377, 99371, 99367, 99349, 99347, 99317, 99289, 99277, 99259, 99257, 99251, 99241, 99233, 99223, 99191, 99181, 99173, 99149, 99139, 99137, 99133, 99131, 99119, 99109, 99103, 99089, 99083, 99079, 99053, 99041, 99023, 99017, 99013, 98999, 98993, 98981, 98963, 98953, 98947, 98939, 98929, 98927, 98911, 98909, 98899, 98897] ...
It took your computer 0:00:40.871083 to calculate it
So It took 40 seconds for my i7 laptop to calculate it. :)

# computes first n prime numbers
def primes(n=1):
from math import sqrt
count = 1
plist = [2]
c = 3
if n <= 0 :
return "Error : integer n not >= 0"
while (count <= n - 1): # n - 1 since 2 is already in plist
pivot = int(sqrt(c))
for i in plist:
if i > pivot : # check for primae factors 'till sqrt c
count+= 1
plist.append(c)
break
elif c % i == 0 :
break # not prime, no need to iterate anymore
else :
continue
c += 2 # skipping even numbers
return plist

You are terminating the loop too early. After you have tested all possibilities in the body of the for loop, and not breaking, then the number is prime. As one is not prime you have to start at 2:
for num in xrange(2, 101):
for i in range(2,num):
if not num % i:
break
else:
print num
In a faster solution you only try to divide by primes that are smaller or equal to the root of the number you are testing. This can be achieved by remembering all primes you have already found. Additionally, you only have to test odd numbers (except 2). You can put the resulting algorithm into a generator so you can use it for storing primes in a container or simply printing them out:
def primes(limit):
if limit > 1:
primes_found = [(2, 4)]
yield 2
for n in xrange(3, limit + 1, 2):
for p, ps in primes_found:
if ps > n:
primes_found.append((n, n * n))
yield n
break
else:
if not n % p:
break
for i in primes(101):
print i
As you can see there is no need to calculate the square root, it is faster to store the square for each prime number and compare each divisor with this number.

How about this? Reading all the suggestions I used this:
prime=[2]+[num for num in xrange(3,m+1,2) if all(num%i!=0 for i in range(2,int(math.sqrt(num))+1))]
Prime numbers up to 1000000
root#nfs:/pywork# time python prime.py
78498
real 0m6.600s
user 0m6.532s
sys 0m0.036s

Adding to the accepted answer, further optimization can be achieved by using a list to store primes and printing them after generation.
import math
Primes_Upto = 101
Primes = [2]
for num in range(3,Primes_Upto,2):
if all(num%i!=0 for i in Primes):
Primes.append(num)
for i in Primes:
print i

Here is the simplest logic for beginners to get prime numbers:
p=[]
for n in range(2,50):
for k in range(2,50):
if n%k ==0 and n !=k:
break
else:
for t in p:
if n%t ==0:
break
else:
p.append(n)
print p

n = int(input())
is_prime = lambda n: all( n%i != 0 for i in range(2, int(n**.5)+1) )
def Prime_series(n):
for i in range(2,n):
if is_prime(i) == True:
print(i,end = " ")
else:
pass
Prime_series(n)
Here is a simplified answer using lambda function.

def function(number):
for j in range(2, number+1):
if all(j % i != 0 for i in range(2, j)):
print(j)
function(13)

for i in range(1, 100):
for j in range(2, i):
if i % j == 0:
break
else:
print(i)

Print n prime numbers using python:
num = input('get the value:')
for i in range(2,num+1):
count = 0
for j in range(2,i):
if i%j != 0:
count += 1
if count == i-2:
print i,

def prime_number(a):
yes=[]
for i in range (2,100):
if (i==2 or i==3 or i==5 or i==7) or (i%2!=0 and i%3!=0 and i%5!=0 and i%7!=0 and i%(i**(float(0.5)))!=0):
yes=yes+[i]
print (yes)

min=int(input("min:"))
max=int(input("max:"))
for num in range(min,max):
for x in range(2,num):
if(num%x==0 and num!=1):
break
else:
print(num,"is prime")
break

This is a sample program I wrote to check if a number is prime or not.
def is_prime(x):
y=0
if x<=1:
return False
elif x == 2:
return True
elif x%2==0:
return False
else:
root = int(x**.5)+2
for i in xrange (2,root):
if x%i==0:
return False
y=1
if y==0:
return True

n = int(raw_input('Enter the integer range to find prime no :'))
p = 2
while p<n:
i = p
cnt = 0
while i>1:
if p%i == 0:
cnt+=1
i-=1
if cnt == 1:
print "%s is Prime Number"%p
else:
print "%s is Not Prime Number"%p
p+=1

Using filter function.
l=range(1,101)
for i in range(2,10): # for i in range(x,y), here y should be around or <= sqrt(101)
l = filter(lambda x: x==i or x%i, l)
print l

for num in range(1,101):
prime = True
for i in range(2,num/2):
if (num%i==0):
prime = False
if prime:
print num

f=0
sum=0
for i in range(1,101):
for j in range(1,i+1):
if(i%j==0):
f=f+1
if(f==2):
sum=sum+i
print i
f=0
print sum

The fastest & best implementation of omitting primes:
def PrimeRanges2(a, b):
arr = range(a, b+1)
up = int(math.sqrt(b)) + 1
for d in range(2, up):
arr = omit_multi(arr, d)

Here is a different approach that trades space for faster search time. This may be fastest so.
import math
def primes(n):
if n < 2:
return []
numbers = [0]*(n+1)
primes = [2]
# Mark all odd numbers as maybe prime, leave evens marked composite.
for i in xrange(3, n+1, 2):
numbers[i] = 1
sqn = int(math.sqrt(n))
# Starting with 3, look at each odd number.
for i in xrange(3, len(numbers), 2):
# Skip if composite.
if numbers[i] == 0:
continue
# Number is prime. Would have been marked as composite if there were
# any smaller prime factors already examined.
primes.append(i)
if i > sqn:
# All remaining odd numbers not marked composite must be prime.
primes.extend([i for i in xrange(i+2, len(numbers), 2)
if numbers[i]])
break
# Mark all multiples of the prime as composite. Check odd multiples.
for r in xrange(i*i, len(numbers), i*2):
numbers[r] = 0
return primes
n = 1000000
p = primes(n)
print "Found", len(p), "primes <=", n

Adding my own version, just to show some itertools tricks v2.7:
import itertools
def Primes():
primes = []
a = 2
while True:
if all(itertools.imap(lambda p : a % p, primes)):
yield a
primes.append(a)
a += 1
# Print the first 100 primes
for _, p in itertools.izip(xrange(100), Primes()):
print p

Python Eratosthenes Sieve Algorithm Optimization

I'm attempting to implement the Sieve of Eratosthenes. The output seems to be correct (minus "2" that needs to be added) but if the input to the function is larger than 100k or so it seems to take an inordinate amount of time. What are ways that I can optimize this function?
def sieveErato(n):
numberList = range(3,n,2)
for item in range(int(math.sqrt(len(numberList)))):
divisor = numberList[item]
for thing in numberList:
if(thing % divisor == 0) and thing != divisor:
numberList.remove(thing)
return numberList

Your algorithm is not the Sieve of Eratosthenes. You perform trial division (the modulus operator) instead of crossing-off multiples, as Eratosthenes did over two thousand years ago. Here is an explanation of the true sieving algorithm, and shown below is my simple, straight forward implementation, which returns a list of primes not exceeding n:
def sieve(n):
m = (n-1) // 2
b = [True]*m
i,p,ps = 0,3,[2]
while p*p < n:
if b[i]:
ps.append(p)
j = 2*i*i + 6*i + 3
while j < m:
b[j] = False
j = j + 2*i + 3
i+=1; p+=2
while i < m:
if b[i]:
ps.append(p)
i+=1; p+=2
return ps
We sieve only on the odd numbers, stopping at the square root of n. The odd-looking calculations on j map between the integers being sieved 3, 5, 7, 9, ... and indexes 0, 1, 2, 3, ... in the b array of bits.
You can see this function in action at http://ideone.com/YTaMB, where it computes the primes to a million in less than a second.

You can try the same way Eratosthenes did. Take an array with all numbers you need to check order ascending, go to number 2 and mark it. Now scratch every second number till the end of the array. Then go to 3 and mark it. After that scratch every third number . Then go to 4 - it is already scratched, so skip it. Repeat this for every n+1 which is not already scratched.
In the end, the marked numbers are the prime one. This algorithm is faster, but sometimes need lots of memory. You can optimize it a little by drop all even numbers (cause they are not prime) and add 2 manually to the list. This will twist the logic a little, but will take half the memory.
Here is an illustration of what I'm talking about: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sieve_of_Eratosthenes

Warning: removing elements from an iterator while iterating on it can be dengerous...
You could make the
if(thing % divisor == 0) and thing != divisor:
test lighter by splitting it in the loop that breaks when you arrive to the index of 'divisor' and then the test:
for thing in numberList_fromDivisorOn:
if(thing % divisor == 0):
numberList.remove(thing)

This code takes 2 seconds to generate primes less than 10M
(it is not mine, i found it somewer on google)
def erat_sieve(bound):
if bound < 2:
return []
max_ndx = (bound - 1) // 2
sieve = [True] * (max_ndx + 1)
#loop up to square root
for ndx in range(int(bound ** 0.5) // 2):
# check for prime
if sieve[ndx]:
# unmark all odd multiples of the prime
num = ndx * 2 + 3
sieve[ndx+num:max_ndx:num] = [False] * ((max_ndx-ndx-num-1)//num + 1)
# translate into numbers
return [2] + [ndx * 2 + 3 for ndx in range(max_ndx) if sieve[ndx]]

I followed this link: Sieve of Eratosthenes - Finding Primes Python as suggested by #MAK and I've found that the accepted answer could be improved with an idea I've found in your code:
def primes_sieve2(limit):
a = [True] * limit # Initialize the primality list
a[0] = a[1] = False
sqrt = int(math.sqrt(limit))+1
for i in xrange(sqrt):
isprime = a[i]
if isprime:
yield i
for n in xrange(i*i, limit, i): # Mark factors non-prime
a[n] = False
for (i, isprime) in enumerate(a[sqrt:]):
if isprime:
yield i+sqrt

if given unlimited memory and time, the following code will print all the prime numbers. and it'll do it without using trial division. it is based on the haskell code in the paper: The Genuine Sieve of Eratosthenes by Melissa E. O'Neill
from heapq import heappush, heappop, heapreplace
def sieve():
w = [2,4,2,4,6,2,6,4,2,4,6,6,2,6,4,2,6,4,6,8,4,2,4,2,4,8,6,4,6,2,4,6,2,6,6,4,2,4,6,2,6,4,2,4,2,10,2,10]
for p in [2,3,5,7]: print p
n,o = 11,0
t = []
l = len(w)
p = n
heappush(t, (p*p, n,o,p))
print p
while True:
n,o = n+w[o],(o+1)%l
p = n
if not t[0][0] <= p:
heappush(t, (p*p, n,o,p))
print p
continue
while t[0][0] <= p:
_, b,c,d = t[0]
b,c = b+w[c],(c+1)%l
heapreplace(t, (b*d, b,c,d))
sieve()