Implementing Taylor Series for sine and cosine in C - c

Question

I've been following the guide my prof gave us, but I just can't find where I went wrong. I've also been going through some other questions about implementing the Taylor Series in C.
Just assume that RaiseTo(raise a number to the power of x) is there.
double factorial (int n)
{
int fact = 1,
flag;
for (flag = 1; flag <= n; flag++)
{
fact *= flag;
}
return flag;
}
double sine (double rad)
{
int flag_2,
plusOrMinus2 = 0; //1 for plus, 0 for minus
double sin,
val2 = rad,
radRaisedToX2,
terms;
terms = NUMBER_OF_TERMS; //10 terms
for (flag_2 = 1; flag_2 <= 2 * terms; flag_2 += 2)
{
radRaisedToX2 = RaiseTo(rad, flag_2);
if (plusOrMinus2 == 0)
{
val2 -= radRaisedToX2/factorial(flag_2);
plusOrMinus2++; //Add the next number
}
else
{
val2 += radRaisedToX2/factorial(flag_2);
plusOrMinus2--; //Subtract the next number
}
}
sin = val2;
return sin;
}
int main()
{
int degree;
scanf("%d", &degree);
double rad, cosx, sinx;
rad = degree * PI / 180.00;
//cosx = cosine (rad);
sinx = sine (rad);
printf("%lf \n%lf", rad, sinx);
}
So during the loop, I get the rad^x, divide it by the factorial of the odd number series starting from 1, then add or subtract it depending on what's needed, but when I run the program, I get outputs way above one, and we all know that the limits of sin(x) are 1 and -1, I'd really like to know where I went wrong so I could improve, sorry if it's a pretty bad question.

Answer 1

Anything over 12! is larger than can fit into a 32-bit int, so such values will overflow and therefore won't return what you expect.
Instead of computing the full factorial each time, take a look at each term in the sequence relative to the previous one. For any given term, the next one is -((x*x)/(flag_2*(flag_2-1)) times the previous one. So start with a term of x, then multiply by that factor for each successive term.
There's also a trick to calculating the result to the precision of a double without knowing how many terms you need. I'll leave that as an exercise to the reader.

Answer 2

In the function factorial you are doing an int multiply before assigned to the double return value of the function. Factorials can easily break the int range, such as 20! = 2432902008176640000.
You also returned the wrong variable - the loop counter!
Please change the local variable to double, as
double factorial (int n)
{
double fact = 1;
int flag;
for (flag = 1; flag <= n; flag++)
{
fact *= flag;
}
return fact; // it was the wrong variable, and wrong type
}
Also there is not even any need for a factorial calculation. Note that each term of the series multiplies the previous term by rad and divides by the term number - with a change of sign.

Answer 3

Another fairly naive, 5-minute approach involves computing a look-up table that contains the first 20 or so factorials, i.e 1! .. 20! This requires very little memory and can increase speed over the 'each-time' computation method. A further optimization can easily be realized in the function that pre-computes the factorials, taking advantage of the relationship each has to the previous one.
An approach that efficiently eliminated branching (if X do Y else do Z) in the loops of the two trig functions would provide yet more speed again.
C code
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <math.h>
const int nMaxTerms=20;
double factorials[nMaxTerms];
double factorial(int n)
{
if (n==1)
return 1;
else
return (double)n * factorial(n - 1.0);
}
void precalcFactorials()
{
for (int i=1; i<nMaxTerms+1; i++)
{
factorials[i-1] = factorial(i);
}
}
/*
sin(x) = x - (x^3)/3! + (x^5)/5! - (x^7)/7! .......
*/
double taylorSine(double rads)
{
double result = rads;
for (int curTerm=1; curTerm<=(nMaxTerms/2)-1; curTerm++)
{
double curTermValue = pow(rads, (curTerm*2)+1);
curTermValue /= factorials[ curTerm*2 ];
if (curTerm & 0x01)
result -= curTermValue;
else
result += curTermValue;
}
return result;
}
/*
cos(x) = 1 - (x^2)/2! + (x^4)/4! - (x^6)/6! .......
*/
double taylorCos(double rads)
{
double result = 1.0;
for (int curTerm=1; curTerm<=(nMaxTerms/2)-1; curTerm++)
{
double curTermValue = pow(rads, (curTerm*2) );
curTermValue /= factorials[ (curTerm*2) - 1 ];
if (curTerm & 0x01)
result -= curTermValue;
else
result += curTermValue;
}
return result;
}
int main()
{
precalcFactorials();
printf("Math sin(0.5) = %f\n", sin(0.5));
printf("taylorSin(0.5) = %f\n", taylorSine(0.5));
printf("Math cos(0.5) = %f\n", cos(0.5));
printf("taylorCos(0.5) = %f\n", taylorCos(0.5));
return 0;
}
output
Math sin(0.5) = 0.479426
taylorSin(0.5) = 0.479426
Math cos(0.5) = 0.877583
taylorCos(0.5) = 0.877583
Javascript
Implemented in javascript, the code produces seemingly identical results (I didn't test very much) to the inbuilt Math library when summing just 7 terms in the sin/cos functions.
window.addEventListener('load', onDocLoaded, false);
function onDocLoaded(evt)
{
console.log('starting');
for (var i=1; i<21; i++)
factorials[i-1] = factorial(i);
console.log('calculated');
console.log(" Math.cos(0.5) = " + Math.cos(0.5));
console.log("taylorCos(0.5) = " + taylorCos(0.5));
console.log('-');
console.log(" Math.sin(0.5) = " + Math.sin(0.5));
console.log("taylorSine(0.5) = " + taylorSine(0.5));
}
var factorials = [];
function factorial(n)
{
if (n==1)
return 1;
else
return n * factorial(n-1);
}
/*
sin(x) = x - (x^3)/3! + (x^5)/5! - (x^7)/7! .......
*/
function taylorSine(x)
{
var result = x;
for (var curTerm=1; curTerm<=7; curTerm++)
{
var curTermValue = Math.pow(x, (curTerm*2)+1);
curTermValue /= factorials[ curTerm*2 ];
if (curTerm & 0x01)
result -= curTermValue;
else
result += curTermValue;
}
return result;
}
/*
cos(x) = 1 - (x^2)/2! + (x^4)/4! - (x^6)/6! .......
*/
function taylorCos(x)
{
var result = 1.0;
for (var curTerm=1; curTerm<=7; curTerm++)
{
var curTermValue = Math.pow(x, (curTerm*2));
curTermValue /= factorials[ (curTerm*2)-1 ];
if (curTerm & 0x01)
result -= curTermValue;
else
result += curTermValue;
}
return result;
}