Find out max divisor of a positive integer - c

Question

I need to find the biggest divisor of a positive integer and output it. Divisor should not be 1 or be equal to the integer itself. If it's a prime number the output should be "0". I have this code so far. However it doesn't work. It only works when I use "break" instead of "return 0" statement, but according to the task I should not use break :( How can I fix it? Thnx
#include <stdio.h>
int main() {
int input, maxDiv;
int div = 2;
scanf("%d", &input);
for ( ; div <= input/2; div += 1 ) {
if ( input % div == 0 ) {
maxDiv = input / div;
return 0;
} else {
maxDiv = 0;
}
}
printf("%d\n", maxDiv);
return 0;
}

Answer 1

You can rewrite it this way
int main(){
int input, maxDiv = 0;
int div = 2;
scanf("%d", &input);
for(; !maxDiv; div++)
if(!(input%div))
maxDiv = input/div;
printf("%d\n", ( maxDiv == 1 || input < 0 ? 0 : maxDiv ) );
return 0;
}
It is an infinite loop that will exit as soon as maxDiv != 0. The complexity is O(sqrt (n)) as there is always a divisor of n less than or equal to sqrt(n), so the code is bound to exit (even if input is negative).
I forgot, you have to handle the case where input is zero.

Answer 2

Maybe you can declare a flag?
#include <stdio.h>
int main() {
int input, maxDiv;
int div = 2;
char found = 0;
scanf("%d", &input);
for ( ; div <= input/2 && !found ; div += 1 ) {
if ( input % div == 0 ) {
maxDiv = input / div;
found = 1;
} else {
maxDiv = 0;
}
}
printf("%d\n", maxDiv);
return 0;
}

Answer 3

You can stop the loop when you reach sqrt(input)... it's not that difficult to find a perfectly good integer sqrt function.
There's not a lot of point dividing by all the even numbers after 2. In fact there's not a lot of point dividing by anything except the primes. It's not hard to find the primes up to sqrt(INT_MAX) (46340, for 32-bit integer)... there are tables of primes freely available if you don't want to run a quick sieve to generate same.
And the loop...
maxdiv = 0 ;
i = 0 ;
sq = isqrt(input) ;
while ((maxdiv == 0) && (prime[i] < sq))
{
if ((input % prime[i]) == 0)
maxdiv = input / prime[i] ;
i += 1 ;
} ;
assuming a suitable integer sqrt function and a table of primes... as discussed.

Answer 4

Since you are looking for the largest divisor, is there a reason you're not looping backward to 2? If there isn't, then there should be no need for a break statement or any special logic to exit the loop as you should keep looping until div is greater than input / 2, testing every value until you find the largest divisor.
maxDiv = -1;
for (div = input / 2;
div >= 2 && maxDiv == -1;
--div)
{
if (input % div == 0)
maxDiv = div;
}
maxDiv += (maxDiv == -1);
printf ("%d\n", maxDiv);
I added the extra condition of maxDiv being -1, which is like adding a conditional break statement. If it is still -1 by the end of the loop, then it becomes 0 because maxDiv += 1 is like writing maxDiv = -1 + 1, which is 0.
Without any jump statement such as break, this sort of test is what you must do.
Also, regarding your code, if I input 40, the if statement will be triggered when div is 2, and the program will end. If the return 0 is changed to a break, maxDiv will be 2, not 20. Looping backward will find 20 since 40/2=20, and 40%20==0.

Answer 5

Let us denote D to the max divisor of a given composite number N > 1.
Then, obviously, the number d = N / D is the min non-trivial divisor of N.
If d would not a primer number, then d would have a non-trivial divisor p < d.
By transitivity, this implies that p is a divisor of N, but this fact would contradict the fact that d is the min divisor of N, since p < d.
So, d must be a prime number.
In particular, it is enouth to search over those numbers which are less than sqrt(N), since, if p is a prime number greater than sqrt(N) which divies N, then N / p <= sqrt(N) (if not, *p * (N / p) > sqrt(N)sqrt(N) == N, wich is absurd).
This shows that it's enough to do the search the least divisor d of N just within the range of primer numbers from 2 to sqrt(N).
For efficiency, the value sqrt(N) must be computed just once before the loop.
Moreover, it is enough a rough approximation of sqrt(N), so we can write:
#include <math.h>
#include <stdio.h>
int main(void)
{
int N;
scanf("%d",&N);
// First, we discard the case in that N is trivial
// 1 is not prime, but indivisible.
// Change this return if your want.
if (N == 1)
return 0;
// Secondly, we discard the case in that N is even.
if (N % 2 == 0)
return N / 2;
// Now, the least prime divisor of N is odd.
// So, we increment the counter by 2 in the loop, by starting in 3.
float sqrtN = fsqrt(N); // square root of N in float precision.
for(d = 3; d <= sqrtN; d += 2)
if (N % d == 0)
return N/d;
// If the loop has reached its end normally,
// it means that N is prime.
return 0;
}
I think that the problem is not well stated, since I consider that a better flag to signalize that N is prime would be a returned value of 1.
There are more efficient algorithms to determine primality, but they are beyond the scope of the present question.