How to express this mathematical relation in a c program - c

How to create a c code that receive int parameter n and return the value of this mathematical equation
f(n) = 3 * f(n - 1) + 4, where f(0) = 1
each time the program receive n , the program should start from the 0 to n which means in code (for loop) .
the problem here that i can't translate this into code , I'm stuck at the f(n-1) part , how can i make this work in c ?
Note. this code should be build only in basic C (no more the loops , no functions , in the void main etc) .

It's called recursion, and you have a base case where f(0) == 1, so just check if (n == 0) and return 1 or recurse
int f(int n)
{
if (n == 0)
return 1;
return 3 * f(n - 1) + 4;
}
An iterative solution is quite simple too, for example if f(5)
#include <stdio.h>
int
main(void)
{
int f;
int n;
f = 1;
for (n = 1 ; n <= 5 ; ++n)
f = 3 * f + 4;
printf("%d\n", f);
return 0;
}

A LRE (linear recurrence equation) can be converted into a matrix multiply. In this case:
F(0) = | 1 | (the current LRE value)
| 1 | (this is just copied, used for the + 4)
M = | 3 4 | (calculates LRE to new 1st number)
| 0 1 | (copies previous 2nd number to new 2nd number (the 1))
F(n) = M F(n-1) = matrixpower(M, n) F(0)
You can raise a matrix to the power n by using repeated squaring, sometimes called binary exponentiation. Example code for integer:
r = 1; /* result */
s = m; /* s = squares of integer m */
while(n){ /* while exponent != 0 */
if(n&1) /* if bit of exponent set */
r *= s; /* multiply by s */
s *= s; /* s = s squared */
n >>= 1; /* test next exponent bit */
}
For an unsigned 64 bit integer, the max value for n is 40, so the maximum number of loops would be 6, since 2^6 > 40.
If this expression was calculating f(n) = 3 f(n-1) + 4 modulo some prime number (like 1,000,000,007) for very large n, then the matrix method would be useful, but in this case, with a max value of n = 40, recursion or iteration is good enough and simpler.

Best will be to use recursion . Learn it online .
Its is very powerful method for solving problems. Classical one is to calculate factorials. Its is used widely in many algorithms like tree/graph traversal etc.
Recursion in computer science is a method where the solution to a problem depends on solutions to smaller instances of the same problem.
Here you break you problem of size n into 3 instance of sub problem of size n-1 + a problem of constant size at each such step.
Recursion will stop at base case i.e. the trivial case here for n=0 the function or the smallest sub problem has value 1.

Related

How to handle "((9^x)-2)%5" without overflow at higher x?

I'm doing some exam prep for my discrete mathematics course, and I have to implement the function
f(x) = ((9^x)-2)%5
Since the values of our x in the assignment is 100000 < x <= 1000000, I'm having some trouble handling the overflow
In our assignment there's a hint: "Find a way to apply the modulus throughout the calculations. Otherwise you will get much too big numbers very quickly when calculating 9^x"
I cannot figure out the logic to make this work tho, any help would be appreciated
/* This function should return 1 if 9^x-2 mod 5 = 2 and 0 otherwise */
int is2mod5(int x){
int a;
double b = pow(9, x);
a = b;
int c = (a-2)%5;
if (c == 2)
{
return 1;
}
else
{
return 0;
}
}
Since you are calculating modulo 5, multiplications can be done modulo 5 as well. 9 is congruent to -1 modulo 5. Thus 9^x is congruent to (-1)^x modulo 5, i.e. 1 if x is even and -1 if x is odd. Subtracting 2 gives -1 and -3 which are congruent to 4 and 2 respectively.
Thus, f(x) is 4 if x is even and 2 if x is odd.

Project Euler Number 160 - attempt in C

Forgive me if I am being a bit silly, but I have only very recently started programming, and am maybe a little out of my depth doing Problem 160 on Project Euler. I have made some attempts at solving it but it seems that going through 1tn numbers will take too long on any personal computer, so I guess I should be looking into the mathematics to find some short-cuts.
Project Euler Problem 160:
For any N, let f(N) be the last five digits before the trailing zeroes
in N!. For example,
9! = 362880 so f(9)=36288 10! = 3628800 so f(10)=36288 20! =
2432902008176640000 so f(20)=17664
Find f(1,000,000,000,000)
New attempt:
#include <stdio.h>
main()
{
//I have used long long ints everywhere to avoid possible multiplication errors
long long f; //f is f(1,000,000,000,000)
f = 1;
for (long long i = 1; i <= 1000000000000; i = ++i){
long long p;
for (p = i; (p % 10) == 0; p = p / 10) //p is i without proceeding zeros
;
p = (p % 1000000); //p is last six nontrivial digits of i
for (f = f * p; (f % 10) == 0; f = f / 10)
;
f = (f % 1000000);
}
f = (f % 100000);
printf("f(1,000,000,000,000) = %d\n", f);
}
Old attempt:
#include <stdio.h>
main()
{
//This part of the programme removes the zeros in factorials by dividing by 10 for each factor of 5, and finds f(1,000,000,000,000) inductively
long long int f, m; //f is f(n), m is 10^k for each multiple of 5
short k; //Stores multiplicity of 5 for each multiple of 5
f = 1;
for (long long i = 1; i <= 100000000000; ++i){
if ((i % 5) == 0){
k = 1;
for ((m = i / 5); (m % 5) == 0; m = m / 5) //Computes multiplicity of 5 in factorisation of i
++k;
m = 1;
for (short j = 1; j <= k; ++j) //Computes 10^k
m = 10 * m;
f = (((f * i) / m) % 100000);
}
else f = ((f * i) % 100000);
}
printf("f(1,000,000,000,000) = %d\n", f);
}
The problem is:
For any N, let f(N) be the last five digits before the trailing zeroes in N!. Find f(1,000,000,000,000)
Let's rephrase the question:
For any N, let g(N) be the last five digits before the trailing zeroes in N. For any N, let f(N) be g(N!). Find f(1,000,000,000,000).
Now, before you write the code, prove this assertion mathematically:
For any N > 1, f(N) is equal to g(f(N-1) * g(N))
Note that I have not proved this myself; I might be making a mistake here. (UPDATE: It appears to be wrong! We'll have to give this more thought.) Prove it to your satisfaction. You might want to start by proving some intermediate results, like:
g(x * y) = g(g(x) * g(y))
And so on.
Once you have obtained a proof of this result, now you have a recurrence relation that you can use to find any f(N), and the numbers you have to deal with don't ever get much larger than N.
Prod(n->k)(k*a+c) mod a <=> c^k mod a
For example
prod[ 3, 1000003, 2000003,... , 999999000003 ] mod 1000000
equals
3^(1,000,000,000,000/1,000,000) mod 1000000
And number of trailing 0 in N! equals to number of 5 in factorisation of N!
I would compute the whole thing and then separate first nonzero digits from LSB ...
but for you I think is better this:
1.use bigger base
any number can be rewrite as sum of multiplies of powers of the same number (base)
like 1234560004587786542 can be rewrite to base b=1000 000 000 like this:
1*b^2 + 234560004*b^1 + 587786542*b^0
2.when you multiply then lower digit is dependent only on lowest digits of multiplied numbers
A*B = (a0*b^0+a1*b^1+...)*(b0*b^0+b1*b^1+...)
= (a0*b0*b^0)+ (...*b^1) + (...*b^2)+ ...
3.put it together
for (f=1,i=1;i<=N;i++)
{
j=i%base;
// here remove ending zeroes from j
f*=j;
// here remove ending zeroes from f
f%=base;
}
do not forget that variable f has to be big enough for base^2
and base has to be at least 2 digits bigger then 100000 to cover 5 digits and overflows to zero
base must be power of 10 to preserve decimal digits
[edit1] implementation
uint<2> f,i,j,n,base; // mine 64bit unsigned ints (i use 32bit compiler/app)
base="10000000000"; // base >= 100000^2 ... must be as string to avoid 32bit trunc
n="20"; // f(n) ... must be as string to avoid 32bit trunc
for (f=1,i=1;i<=n;i++)
{
j=i%base;
for (;(j)&&((j%10).iszero());j/=10);
f*=j;
for (;(f)&&((f%10).iszero());f/=10);
f%=base;
}
f%=100000;
int s=f.a[1]; // export low 32bit part of 64bit uint (s is the result)
It is too slow :(
f(1000000)=12544 [17769.414 ms]
f( 20)=17664 [ 0.122 ms]
f( 10)=36288 [ 0.045 ms]
for more speed or use any fast factorial implementation
[edit2] just few more 32bit n! factorials for testing
this statement is not valid :(
//You could attempt to exploit that
//f(n) = ( f(n%base) * (f(base)^floor(n/base)) )%base
//do not forget that this is true only if base fulfill the conditions above
luckily this one seems to be true :) but only if (a is much much bigger then b and a%base=0)
g((a+b)!)=g(g(a!)*g(b!))
// g mod base without last zeroes...
// this can speed up things a lot
f( 1)=00001
f( 10)=36288
f( 100)=16864
f( 1,000)=53472
f( 10,000)=79008
f( 100,000)=56096
f( 1,000,000)=12544
f( 10,000,000)=28125
f( 1,000,100)=42016
f( 1,000,100)=g(??????12544*??????16864)=g(??????42016)->42016
the more is a closer to b the less valid digits there are!!!
that is why f(1001000) will not work ...
I'm not an expert project Euler solver, but some general advice for all Euler problems.
1 - Start by solving the problem in the most obvious way first. This may lead to insights for later attempts
2 - Work the problem for a smaller range. Euler usually give an answer for the smaller range that you can use to check your algorithm
3 - Scale up the problem and work out how the problem will scale, time-wise, as the problem gets bigger
4 - If the solution is going to take longer than a few minutes, it's time to check the algorithm and come up with a better way
5 - Remember that Euler problems always have an answer and rely on a combination of clever programming and clever mathematics
6 - A problem that has been solved by many people cannot be wrong, it's you that's wrong!
I recently solved the phidigital number problem (Euler's site is down, can't look up the number, it's quite recent at time of posting) using exactly these steps. My initial brute-force algorithm was going to take 60 hours, I took a look at the patterns solving to 1,000,000 showed and got the insight to find a solution that took 1.25s.
It might be an idea to deal with numbers ending 2,4,5,6,8,0 separately. Numbers ending 1,3,7,9 can not contribute to a trailing zeros. Let
A(n) = 1 * 3 * 7 * 9 * 11 * 13 * 17 * 19 * ... * (n-1).
B(n) = 2 * 4 * 5 * 6 * 8 * 10 * 12 * 14 * 15 * 16 * 18 * 20 * ... * n.
The factorial of n is A(n)*B(n). We can find the last five digits of A(n) quite easily. First find A(100,000) MOD 100,000 we can make this easier by just doing multiplications mod 100,000. Note that A(200,000) MOD 100,000 is just A(100,000)*A(100,000) MOD 100,000 as 100,001 = 1 MOD 100,000 etc. So A(1,000,000,000,000) is just A(100,000)^10,000,000 MOD 100,000.
More care is needed with 2,4,5,6,8,0 you'll need to track when these add a trailing zero. Obviously whenever we multiply by numbers ending 2 or 5 we will end up with a zero. However there are cases when you can get two zeros 25*4 = 100.

Given n, find the maximum numbers added to get n

Question asked in oracle interview.For example,if my input is 6, then
5+1=6 Ans:2
4+2=6 Ans:2
3+2+1=6 Ans:3
So, the final answer should be 3.(i.e 3,2,1 are needed to get sum 6)
Note:Repetition of number isn't allowed (i.e 1+1+1+1+1+1=6)
I solved it using recursion but interviewer wasn't satisfied. Is Dynamic Programming possible?
The minimum sum of x numbers is
So just find x that satisfies the inequality:
Here's the code:
#include <stdio.h>
int main() {
int n;
scanf("%d", &n);
int x = 1;
while ((x+1)*x/2 <= n) x++;
x--; // now (x+1)*x/2 > n , so x is too large
printf("%d\n", x);
return 0;
}
You can use binary search if n is very large.
I was about to post the answer but #Cruise Liu beat me to it. Ill try explaining it a bit .
Its a type of integer partitioning but you dont need to generate the elements since you're only interested in the 'number of elements'. i.e. the final answer 3 and not {1, 2, 3}
Given a number N, you have another restriction that numbers cannot repeat.
Hence the best case would be if N is actually a number say 1, 3, 6, 10, 15
i.e. f(x) = x * (x + 1) / 2.
For example, take 6. f(x) = 6 exists. specifically f(3) = 6 . Thus you get the answer 3.
What this means is that if there is an integer X that exists for f(x) = N, then there is a set of numbers 1, 2, 3 ... x that when added up give N. And this is the maximum number possible (without repitition).
However, there are cases in f(x) = N where x is not an integer.
f(x) = x * (x + 1 ) / 2 = N
i.e. x**2 + x = 2*N
x**2 + x - 2*N = 0
Solving this quadratic we get
Since the number x is not negative we can't have
So we're left with
For N = 6
A perfect Integer. But for N = 12
which is 8.845 / 2 which is a fraction. The floor value is 4, which is the answer.
In short: Implement a function
f(N) = (int) ((-1.0 + sqrt(1 + 8*N))/2.0 )
i.e.
int max_partition_length(int n){
return (int)((-1.0 + sqrt(1 + n*8))/2);
}

Best way to compute ((2^n )-1)mod p

I'm working on a cryptographic exercise, and I'm trying to calculate (2n-1)mod p where p is a prime number
What would be the best approach to do this? I'm working with C so 2n-1 becomes too large to hold when n is large
I came across the equation (a*b)modp=(a(bmodp))modp, but I'm not sure this applies in this case, as 2n-1 may be prime (or I'm not sure how to factorise this)
Help much appreciated.
A couple tips to help you come up with a better way:
Don't use (a*b)modp=(a(bmodp))modp to compute 2n-1 mod p, use it to compute 2n mod p and then subtract afterward.
Fermat's little theorem can be useful here. That way, the exponent you actually have to deal with won't exceed p.
You mention in the comments that n and p are 9 or 10 digits, or something. If you restrict them to 32 bit (unsigned long) values, you can find 2^n mod p with a simple (binary) modular exponentiation:
unsigned long long u = 1, w = 2;
while (n != 0)
{
if ((n & 0x1) != 0)
u = (u * w) % p; /* (mul-rdx) */
if ((n >>= 1) != 0)
w = (w * w) % p; /* (sqr-rdx) */
}
r = (unsigned long) u;
And, since (2^n - 1) mod p = r - 1 mod p :
r = (r == 0) ? (p - 1) : (r - 1);
If 2^n mod p = 0 - which doesn't actually occur if p > 2 is prime - but we might as well consider the general case - then (2^n - 1) mod p = -1 mod p.
Since the 'common residue' or 'remainder' (mod p) is in [0, p - 1], we add a some multiple of p so that it is in this range.
Otherwise, the result of 2^n mod p was in [1, p - 1], and subtracting 1 will be in this range already. It's probably better expressed as:
if (r == 0)
r = p - 1; /* -1 mod p */
else
r = r - 1;
To take modulus you somehow must have 2^n-1 or you will move in a different direction of algorithms, interesting but seperate direction somehow, so i recommend you to use big int concept as it will be easy... make a structure and implement a big value in small values, e.g.
struct bigint{
int lowerbits;
int upperbits;
}
decomposition of the statement also has solution like 2^n = (2^n-4 * 2^4 )-1%p decompose and seperatly handle them, that will be quite algorithmic then
To compute 2^n - 1 mod p, you can use exponentiation by squaring after first removing any multiple of (p - 1) from n (since a^{p-1} = 1 mod p). In pseudo-code:
n = n % (p - 1)
result = 1
pow = 2
while n {
if n % 2 {
result = (result * pow) % p
}
pow = (pow * pow) % p
n /= 2
}
result = (result + p - 1) % p
I came across the answer that I am posting here, when solving one of the mathematical problems on HackerRank, and it has worked for all the given test cases given there.
If you restrict n and p to 64 bit (unsigned long) values, then here is the mathematical approach :
2^n - 1 can be written as 1*[ (2^n - 1)/(2 - 1) ]
If you look at this carefully, this is the sum of the GP 1 + 2 + 4 + .. + 2^(n-1)
And voila, we know that (a+b)%m = ( (a%m) + (b%m) )%m
If you have a confusion whether the above relation is true or not for addition, you can google for it or you can check this link : http://www.inf.ed.ac.uk/teaching/courses/dmmr/slides/13-14/Ch4.pdf
So, now we can apply the above mentioned relation to our GP, and you would have your answer!!
That is,
(2^n - 1)%p is equivalent to ( 1 + 2 + 4 + .. + 2^(n-1) )%p and now apply the given relation.
First, focus on 2n mod p because you can always subtract one at the end.
Consider the powers of two. This is a sequence of numbers produced by repeatedly multiplying by two.
Consider the modulo operation. If the number is written in base p, you're just grabbing the last digit. Higher digits can be thrown away.
So at some point(s) in the sequence, you get a two-digit number (a 1 in the p's place), and your task is really just to get rid of the first digit (subtract p) when that happens.
Stopping here conceptually, the brute-force approach would be something like this:
uint64_t exp2modp( uint64_t n, uint64_t p ) {
uint64_t ret = 1;
uint64_t limit = p / 2;
n %= p; // Apply Fermat's Little Theorem.
while ( n -- ) {
if ( ret >= limit ) {
ret *= 2;
ret -= p;
} else {
ret *= 2;
}
}
return ret;
}
Unfortunately, this still takes forever for large n and p, and I can't think of any better number theory offhand.
If you have a multiplication facility which can compute (p-1)^2 without overflow, then you can use an analogous algorithm using repeated squaring with a modulo after each square operation, and then take the product of the series of square residuals, again with a modulo after each multiplication.
step 1. x= shifting 1 n times and then subtract 1
step 2.result = logical and operation of x and p

How do I get a specific range of numbers from rand()?

srand(time(null));
printf("%d", rand());
Gives a high-range random number (0-32000ish), but I only need about 0-63 or 0-127, though I'm not sure how to go about it. Any help?
rand() % (max_number + 1 - minimum_number) + minimum_number
So, for 0-65:
rand() % (65 + 1 - 0) + 0
(obviously you can leave the 0 off, but it's there for completeness).
Note that this will bias the randomness slightly, but probably not anything to be concerned about if you're not doing something particularly sensitive.
You can use this:
int random(int min, int max){
return min + rand() / (RAND_MAX / (max - min + 1) + 1);
}
From the:
comp.lang.c FAQ list · Question 13.16
Q: How can I get random integers in a certain range?
A: The obvious way,
rand() % N /* POOR */
(which tries to return numbers from 0 to N-1) is poor, because the
low-order bits of many random number generators are distressingly
non-random. (See question 13.18.) A better method is something like
(int)((double)rand() / ((double)RAND_MAX + 1) * N)
If you'd rather not use floating point, another method is
rand() / (RAND_MAX / N + 1)
If you just need to do something with probability 1/N, you could use
if(rand() < (RAND_MAX+1u) / N)
All these methods obviously require knowing RAND_MAX (which ANSI #defines in <stdlib.h>), and assume that N is much less than RAND_MAX. When N is close to RAND_MAX, and if the range of the random number
generator is not a multiple of N (i.e. if (RAND_MAX+1) % N != 0), all
of these methods break down: some outputs occur more often than
others. (Using floating point does not help; the problem is that rand
returns RAND_MAX+1 distinct values, which cannot always be evenly
divvied up into N buckets.) If this is a problem, about the only thing
you can do is to call rand multiple times, discarding certain values:
unsigned int x = (RAND_MAX + 1u) / N;
unsigned int y = x * N;
unsigned int r;
do {
r = rand();
} while(r >= y);
return r / x;
For any of these techniques, it's straightforward to shift the range,
if necessary; numbers in the range [M, N] could be generated with
something like
M + rand() / (RAND_MAX / (N - M + 1) + 1)
(Note, by the way, that RAND_MAX is a constant telling you what the
fixed range of the C library rand function is. You cannot set RAND_MAX
to some other value, and there is no way of requesting that rand
return numbers in some other range.)
If you're starting with a random number generator which returns
floating-point values between 0 and 1 (such as the last version of
PMrand alluded to in question 13.15, or drand48 in question
13.21), all you have to do to get integers from 0 to N-1 is
multiply the output of that generator by N:
(int)(drand48() * N)
Additional links
References: K&R2 Sec. 7.8.7 p. 168
PCS Sec. 11 p. 172
Quote from: http://c-faq.com/lib/randrange.html
check here
http://c-faq.com/lib/randrange.html
For any of these techniques, it's straightforward to shift the range, if necessary; numbers in the range [M, N] could be generated with something like
M + rand() / (RAND_MAX / (N - M + 1) + 1)
Taking the modulo of the result, as the other posters have asserted will give you something that's nearly random, but not perfectly so.
Consider this extreme example, suppose you wanted to simulate a coin toss, returning either 0 or 1. You might do this:
isHeads = ( rand() % 2 ) == 1;
Looks harmless enough, right? Suppose that RAND_MAX is only 3. It's much higher of course, but the point here is that there's a bias when you use a modulus that doesn't evenly divide RAND_MAX. If you want high quality random numbers, you're going to have a problem.
Consider my example. The possible outcomes are:
rand()
freq.
rand() % 2
0
1/3
0
1
1/3
1
2
1/3
0
Hence, "tails" will happen twice as often as "heads"!
Mr. Atwood discusses this matter in this Coding Horror Article
The naive way to do it is:
int myRand = rand() % 66; // for 0-65
This will likely be a very slightly non-uniform distribution (depending on your maximum value), but it's pretty close.
To explain why it's not quite uniform, consider this very simplified example:
Suppose RAND_MAX is 4 and you want a number from 0-2. The possible values you can get are shown in this table:
rand() | rand() % 3
---------+------------
0 | 0
1 | 1
2 | 2
3 | 0
See the problem? If your maximum value is not an even divisor of RAND_MAX, you'll be more likely to choose small values. However, since RAND_MAX is generally 32767, the bias is likely to be small enough to get away with for most purposes.
There are various ways to get around this problem; see here for an explanation of how Java's Random handles it.
rand() will return numbers between 0 and RAND_MAX, which is at least 32767.
If you want to get a number within a range, you can just use modulo.
int value = rand() % 66; // 0-65
For more accuracy, check out this article. It discusses why modulo is not necessarily good (bad distributions, particularly on the high end), and provides various options.
As others have noted, simply using a modulus will skew the probabilities for individual numbers so that smaller numbers are preferred.
A very ingenious and good solution to that problem is used in Java's java.util.Random class:
public int nextInt(int n) {
if (n <= 0)
throw new IllegalArgumentException("n must be positive");
if ((n & -n) == n) // i.e., n is a power of 2
return (int)((n * (long)next(31)) >> 31);
int bits, val;
do {
bits = next(31);
val = bits % n;
} while (bits - val + (n-1) < 0);
return val;
}
It took me a while to understand why it works and I leave that as an exercise for the reader but it's a pretty concise solution which will ensure that numbers have equal probabilities.
The important part in that piece of code is the condition for the while loop, which rejects numbers that fall in the range of numbers which otherwise would result in an uneven distribution.
double scale = 1.0 / ((double) RAND_MAX + 1.0);
int min, max;
...
rval = (int)(rand() * scale * (max - min + 1) + min);
Updated to not use a #define
double RAND(double min, double max)
{
return (double)rand()/(double)RAND_MAX * (max - min) + min;
}
If you don't overly care about the 'randomness' of the low-order bits, just rand() % HI_VAL.
Also:
(double)rand() / (double)RAND_MAX; // lazy way to get [0.0, 1.0)
This answer does not focus on the randomness but on the arithmetic order.
To get a number within a range, usually we can do it like this:
// the range is between [aMin, aMax]
double f = (double)rand() / RAND_MAX;
double result = aMin + f * (aMax - aMin);
However, there is a possibility that (aMax - aMin) overflows. E.g. aMax = 1, aMin = -DBL_MAX. A safer way is to write like this:
// the range is between [aMin, aMax]
double f = (double)rand() / RAND_MAX;
double result = aMin - f * aMin + f * aMax;
Based on this concept, something like this may cause a problem.
rand() % (max_number + 1 - minimum_number) + minimum_number
// 1. max_number + 1 might overflow
// 2. max_number + 1 - min_number might overflow
if you care about the quality of your random numbers don't use rand()
use some other prng like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mersenne_twister or one of the other high quality prng's out there
then just go with the modulus.
Just to add some extra detail to the existing answers.
The mod % operation will always perform a complete division and therefore yield a remainder less than the divisor.
x % y = x - (y * floor((x/y)))
An example of a random range finding function with comments:
uint32_t rand_range(uint32_t n, uint32_t m) {
// size of range, inclusive
const uint32_t length_of_range = m - n + 1;
// add n so that we don't return a number below our range
return (uint32_t)(rand() % length_of_range + n);
}
Another interesting property as per the above:
x % y = x, if x < y
const uint32_t value = rand_range(1, RAND_MAX); // results in rand() % RAND_MAX + 1
// TRUE for all x = RAND_MAX, where x is the result of rand()
assert(value == RAND_MAX);
result of rand()
2 cents (ok 4 cents):
n = rand()
x = result
l = limit
n/RAND_MAX = x/l
Refactor:
(l/1)*(n/RAND_MAX) = (x/l)*(l/1)
Gives:
x = l*n/RAND_MAX
int randn(int limit)
{
return limit*rand()/RAND_MAX;
}
int i;
for (i = 0; i < 100; i++) {
printf("%d ", randn(10));
if (!(i % 16)) printf("\n");
}
> test
0
5 1 8 5 4 3 8 8 7 1 8 7 5 3 0 0
3 1 1 9 4 1 0 0 3 5 5 6 6 1 6 4
3 0 6 7 8 5 3 8 7 9 9 5 1 4 2 8
2 7 8 9 9 6 3 2 2 8 0 3 0 6 0 0
9 2 2 5 6 8 7 4 2 7 4 4 9 7 1 5
3 7 6 5 3 1 2 4 8 5 9 7 3 1 6 4
0 6 5
Just using rand() will give you same random numbers when running program multiple times. i.e. when you run your program first time it would produce random number x,y and z. If you run the program again then it will produce same x,y and z numbers as observed by me.
The solution I found to keep it unique every time is using srand()
Here is the additional code,
#include<stdlib.h>
#include<time.h>
time_t t;
srand((unsigned) time(&t));
int rand_number = rand() % (65 + 1 - 0) + 0 //i.e Random numbers in range 0-65.
To set range you can use formula : rand() % (max_number + 1 - minimum_number) + minimum_number
Hope it helps!
You can change it by adding a % in front of the rand function in order to change to code
For example:
rand() % 50
will give you a random number in a range of 50. For you, replace 50 with 63 or 127
I think the following does it semi right. It's been awhile since I've touched C. The idea is to use division since modulus doesn't always give random results. I added 1 to RAND_MAX since there are that many possible values coming from rand including 0. And since the range is also 0 inclusive, I added 1 there too. I think the math is arranged correctly avoid integer math problems.
#define MK_DIVISOR(max) ((int)((unsigned int)RAND_MAX+1/(max+1)))
num = rand()/MK_DIVISOR(65);
Simpler alternative to #Joey's answer. If you decide to go with the % method, you need to do a reroll to get the correct distribution. However, you can skip rerolls most of the time because you only need to avoid numbers that fall in the last bucket:
int rand_less_than(int max) {
int last_bucket_min = RAND_MAX - RAND_MAX % max;
int value;
do {
value = rand();
} while (last_bucket_min <= value);
return value % max;
}
See #JarosrawPawlak's article for explanation with diagrams: Random number generator using modulo
In case of RAND_MAX < max, you need to expand the generator: Expand a random range from 1–5 to 1–7
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <time.h> // this line is necessary
int main() {
srand(time(NULL)); // this line is necessary
int random_number = rand() % 65; // [0-64]
return 0;
}
Foy any range between min_num and max_num:
int random_number = rand() % (max_num + 1 - min_num) + min_num;

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