Prime factorization of larger numbers than int - c

Question

This program does Prime Factorization Of Numbers In C.
#include <stdio.h>
int main(void) {
int number, i, p, n, factors, count;
int numbers[1000000];
int counter = 0;
char text[100000];
for (count = 0; count < 1000000; count++) {
fgets(text, 10000000, stdin);
if (sscanf(text, "%d", &number) == 1) {
if (number == 0)
break;
numbers[count] = number;
} else {
numbers[count] = 0;
}
}
counter = 0;
for (i = 0; i < count; i++) {
if ((numbers[i] < 0) || (numbers[i] == 0)) {
fprintf(stderr, "Error: Wrong Input!\n");
return 100;
break;
}
number = numbers[i];
printf("Prime factorization of nubmer %d is:\n", number);
factors = 0;
for (p = 2; p * p <= number; p += 1 + (p & 1)) {
if (number % p == 0) {
n = 0;
factors++;
do {
number /= p;
n++;
} while (number % p == 0);
if (n == 1) {
printf("%d ", p);
++counter;
} else
printf("%d^%d ", p, n);
++counter;
if (count > 0 && number != 1)
printf("x ");
}
}
if (factors == 0 || number != 1)
printf("%d", number);
printf("\n");
}
return 0;
}
This program works fine for numbers smaller than 108. But my question is, if there is a way to make this program even for numbers like 1012. I know that int would not be enough, but when I tried for example long int, it didn't worked. Also I heard something about malloc, but I keep failing to implement (understand) it.

Answer 1

Factorising large numbers usually needs a more subtle approach than simple trial division. Here is a possible outline method:
Make a list of all the primes up to, say, 25,000.
Use the list to remove all prime factors below 25,000.
If there is a remainder > 1 then check if the remainder is prime with a Miller-Rabin test or similar.
If the remainder is prime, then you have found the last factor.
If the remainder is not prime, then you are going to have to factorise it. That will inevitably be slow I'm afraid.

Answer 2

You can use long long. But probably, the real problem is, that it will take a veeeeerrrryyy long time to do the factorization on numbers, that don't fit in a normal int. E.g. you're trying to factorize a prime number in the range 10^12, then you will have to do about 10^6 divisions.
The thing about malloc won't help you with this problem at all, because even bigger values will take even longer to factorize. So, if you want to know, how malloc works, I suggest opening a separate question for that.

Answer 3

Below is a rework of the code using unsigned long long. (I tossed the file stuff to keep this to a minimal example.) Whether this works for your purpose depends on how your system defines a long long (on my system it's 64 bits). I also redid the output format to be compatible with the Unix dc command's postfix notation so I could easily check if the results were correct:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
int main() {
unsigned long long large = 18446744073709551615ULL; // 2^64 - 1
for (unsigned long long counter = large - 1000; counter < large; counter++) {
unsigned long long number = counter;
printf("Prime factorization of %llu is:", number);
unsigned long factors = 0;
for (unsigned long long p = 2; p * p <= number; p += 1 + (p & 1)) {
if (number % p == 0) {
factors++;
unsigned long n = 0;
do {
number /= p;
n++;
} while (number % p == 0);
if (n == 1) {
printf(" %llu", p);
}
else {
printf(" %llu %lu ^", p, n);
}
if (number != 1 && factors > 1) {
printf(" *");
}
}
}
if (factors == 0 || number != 1) {
factors++;
printf(" %llu", number);
}
if (factors > 1) {
printf(" *");
}
printf("\n");
}
return 0;
}
SAMPLE OUTPUT
% ./a.out
Prime factorization of 18446744073709550615 is: 5 563 * 751 * 8725722280871 *
Prime factorization of 18446744073709550616 is: 2 3 ^ 3 * 41 * 7523 * 8243 * 14479 * 20879 *
Prime factorization of 18446744073709550617 is: 79 557 * 419215600611539 *
Prime factorization of 18446744073709550618 is: 2 2298974999 * 4011949691 *
Prime factorization of 18446744073709550619 is: 3 3 ^ 1008659 * 677347590683 *
Prime factorization of 18446744073709550620 is: 2 2 ^ 5 * 7 * 149 * 233 * 3795329598449 *
Prime factorization of 18446744073709550621 is: 11 23 * 72912031911895457 *
Prime factorization of 18446744073709550622 is: 2 3 * 479909 * 6406334004193 *
Prime factorization of 18446744073709550623 is: 3421377637 5391612979 *
Prime factorization of 18446744073709550624 is: 2 5 ^ 61 * 593 * 1699 * 9379762391 *
Prime factorization of 18446744073709550625 is: 3 5 4 ^ * 13 * 756789500459879 *
Prime factorization of 18446744073709550626 is: 2 3743461 * 2463862195133 *
Prime factorization of 18446744073709550627 is: 7 1283 * 4339 * 627089 * 754877 *
Prime factorization of 18446744073709550628 is: 2 2 ^ 3 2 ^ * 101 * 293 * 42751 * 405025111 *
Prime factorization of 18446744073709550629 is: 17 43 * 613 * 66457 * 619442699 *
...
This runs slower but reasonably. You can push this further on some systems by swapping unsigned long long for a uint128_t which some compilers support somewhat:
typedef unsigned __int128 uint128_t;
(And up the unsigned long declarations to unsigned long long.) You'd need to supply number printing routines for the uint128_t type as printf() isn't going to handle them directly. I tried this with the above code and it worked:
Prime factorization of 340282366920938463426481119284349108124 is: 2 2 ^ 31 * 6131 * 7654271 * 21163829 * 21491837 * 128562653437 *
% dc
2 2 ^ 31 * 6131 * 7654271 * 21163829 * 21491837 * 128562653437 * p
340282366920938463426481119284349108124
But I never saw it complete more than one number while running it!

Answer 4

Using type unsigned long long for number and the prime factors will take you to 1019 at the price of longer computation times.
Note however that defining a large local array with automatic storage may cause problems, especially when it reaches a size of 8 megabytes as would be the case for type unsigned long long (this type is at least 64-bit wide). Allocating it from the heap is safer.
Here is an adapted version of the code:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#define NUMBER_MAX 1000000
int main(void) {
unsigned long long *numbers;
unsigned long long number, p;
int i, n, factors, count;
char text[100];
numbers = calloc(NUMBER_MAX, sizeof(*numbers));
if (numbers == NULL) {
printf("cannot allocate number array\n");
return 1;
}
for (count = 0; count < NUMBER_MAX; count++) {
if (!fgets(text, sizeof text, stdin)) {
break;
}
if (sscanf(text, "%llu", &number) == 1 && number > 0) {
numbers[count] = number;
} else {
fprintf(stderr, "Error: Wrong Input!\n");
return 100;
}
}
for (i = 0; i < count; i++) {
number = numbers[i];
printf("Prime factorization of nubmer %llu is:\n", number);
factors = 0;
for (p = 2; p < 0x100000000 && p * p <= number; p += 1 + (p & 1)) {
if (number % p == 0) {
n = 0;
factors++;
do {
number /= p;
n++;
} while (number % p == 0);
if (n == 1) {
printf("%llu ", p);
} else {
printf("%llu^%d ", p, n);
}
if (number != 1) {
printf("* ");
}
}
}
if (factors == 0 || number != 1) {
printf("%llu", number);
}
printf("\n");
}
free(numbers);
return 0;
}