The game with the marbles - recursion

Problem: There are R red marbles, G green marbles and B blue marbles (R≤G≤B) Count the number of ways to arrange them in a straight line so that the two marbles next to each other are of different colors.
For example, R=G=B=2, the answer is 30.
I have tried using recursion and of course TLE:
Define r(R,B,G) to be the number of ways of arranging them where the first marble is red. Define b(R,B,G),g(R,B,G) respectively.
Then r(R, B, G) = b(R-1,B,G) + g(R-1,B,G)
And the answer is r(R,B,G) + b(R,B,G) + g(R,B,G)
But we can see that r(R, B, G) = b(B, R, G) ...
So, we just need a function f(x,y,z)=f(y,x−1,z)+f(z,x−1,y)
And the answer is f(x,y,z) + f(y,z,x) + f(z,x,y).
The time limit is 2 seconds.
I don't think dynamic is not TLE because R, G, B <= 2e5

Some things to limit the recursion:
If R>G+B+1, then there is no way to avoid having 2 adjacent reds. (Similar argument for G>R+B+1 & B>R+G+1.)
If R=G+B+1, then you alternate reds with non-reds, and your problem is reduced to how many ways you can arrange G greens and B blacks w/o worrying about adjacency (and should thus have a closed-form solution). (Again, similar argument for G=R+B+1 and B=R+G+1.)

You can use symmetry to cut down the number of recursions.
For example, if (R, G, B) = (30, 20, 10) and the last marble was red, the number of permutations from this position is exactly the same as if the last marble was blue and (R, G, B) = (10, 20, 30).
Given that R ≤ G ≤ B is set as a starting condition, I would suggest keeping this relationship true by swapping the three values when necessary.
Here's some Python code I came up with:
memo = {}
def marble_seq(r, g, b, last):
# last = colour of last marble placed (-1:nothing, 0:red, 1:green, 2:blue)
if r == g == b == 0:
# All the marbles have been placed, so we found a solution
return 1
# Enforce r <= g <= b
if r > g:
r, g = g, r
last = (0x201 >> last * 4) & 0x0f # [1, 0, 2][last]
if r > b:
r, b = b, r
last = (0x012 >> last * 4) & 0x0f # [2, 1, 0][last]
if g > b:
g, b = b, g
last = (0x120 >> last * 4) & 0x0f # [0, 2, 1][last]
# Abort if there are too many marbles of one colour
if b>r+g+1:
return 0
# Fetch value from memo if available
if (r,g,b,last) in memo:
return memo[(r,g,b,last)]
# Otherwise check remaining permutations by recursion
result = 0
if last != 0 and r > 0:
result += marble_seq(r-1,g,b,0)
if last != 1 and g > 0:
result += marble_seq(r,g-1,b,1)
if last != 2 and b > 0:
result += marble_seq(r,g,b-1,2)
memo[(r,g,b,last)] = result
return result
marble_seq(50,60,70,-1) # Call with `last` set to -1 initially
(Result: 205435997562313431685415150793926465693838980981664)
This probably still won't work fast enough for values up to 2×105, but even with values in the hundreds, the results are quite enormous. Are you sure you stated the problem correctly? Perhaps you're supposed to give the results modulo some prime number?

Related

Is it possible to find a few common multiples of a list of numbers, without them having to be integers?

I don't even know if something like this is possible, but:
Let us say we have three numbers:
A = 6
B = 7.5
C = 24
I would like to find a few evenly spaced common multiples of these numbers between 0 and 2.
So the requirement is: one_of_these_numbers / common_multiple = an_integer (or almost an integer with a particular tolerance)
For example, a good result would be [0.1 , 0.5 , 1 , 1.5]
I have no idea if this is possible, because one can not iterate through a range of floats, but is there a smart way to do it?
I am using python, but a solution could be represented in any language of your preference.
Thank you for your help!
While I was writing my question, I actually came up with an idea for the solution.
To find common divisors using code, we have to work with integers.
My solution is to multiply all numbers by a factor = 1, 10, 100, ...
so that we can act as if they are integers, find their integer common divisors, and then redivide them by the factor to get a result.
Better explained in code:
a = 6
b = 7.5
c = 24
# Find a few possible divisors between 0 and 2 so that all numbers are divisible
by div.
# We define a function that finds all divisors in a range of numbers, supposing
all numbers are integers.
def find_common_divisors(numbers, range_start, range_end):
results = []
for i in range(range_start + 1, range_end + 1):
if all([e % i == 0 for e in numbers]):
results.append(i)
return results
def main():
nums = [a, b, c]
range_start = 0
range_end = 2
factor = 1
results = [1]
while factor < 11:
nums_i = [e * factor for e in nums]
range_end_i = range_end * factor
results += [e / factor for e in find_common_divisors(nums_i, range_start, range_end_i)]
factor *= 10
print(sorted(set(results)))
if __name__ == '__main__':
main()
For these particular numbers, I get the output:
[0.1, 0.3, 0.5, 1, 1.5]
If we need more results, we can adjust while factor < 11: to a higher number than 11 like 101.
I am curious to see if I made any mistake in my code.
Happy to hear some feedback.
Thank you!

Concatenation of binary representation of first n positive integers in O(logn) time complexity

I came across this question in a coding competition. Given a number n, concatenate the binary representation of first n positive integers and return the decimal value of the resultant number formed. Since the answer can be large return answer modulo 10^9+7.
N can be as large as 10^9.
Eg:- n=4. Number formed=11011100(1=1,10=2,11=3,100=4). Decimal value of 11011100=220.
I found a stack overflow answer to this question but the problem is that it only contains a O(n) solution.
Link:- concatenate binary of first N integers and return decimal value
Since n can be up to 10^9 we need to come up with solution that is better than O(n).
Here's some Python code that provides a fast solution; it uses the same ideas as in Abhinav Mathur's post. It requires Python >= 3.8, but it doesn't use anything particularly fancy from Python, and could easily be translated into another language. You'd need to write algorithms for modular exponentiation and modular inverse if they're not already available in the target language.
First, for testing purposes, let's define the slow and obvious version:
# Modulus that results are reduced by,
M = 10 ** 9 + 7
def slow_binary_concat(n):
"""
Concatenate binary representations of 1 through n (inclusive).
Reinterpret the resulting binary string as an integer.
"""
concatenation = "".join(format(k, "b") for k in range(n + 1))
return int(concatenation, 2) % M
Checking that we get the expected result:
>>> slow_binary_concat(4)
220
>>> slow_binary_concat(10)
462911642
Now we'll write a faster version. First, we split the range [1, n) into subintervals such that within each subinterval, all numbers have the same length in binary. For example, the range [1, 10) would be split into four subintervals: [1, 2), [2, 4), [4, 8) and [8, 10). Here's a function to do that splitting:
def split_by_bit_length(n):
"""
Split the numbers in [1, n) by bit-length.
Produces triples (a, b, 2**k). Each triple represents a subinterval
[a, b) of [1, n), with a < b, all of whose elements has bit-length k.
"""
a = 1
while n > a:
b = 2 * a
yield (a, min(n, b), b)
a = b
Example output:
>>> list(split_by_bit_length(10))
[(1, 2, 2), (2, 4, 4), (4, 8, 8), (8, 10, 16)]
Now for each subinterval, the value of the concatenation of all numbers in that subinterval is represented by a fairly simple mathematical sum, which can be computed in exact form. Here's a function to compute that sum modulo M:
def subinterval_concat(a, b, l):
"""
Concatenation of values in [a, b), all of which have the same bit-length k.
l is 2**k.
Equivalently, sum(i * l**(b - 1 - i)) for i in range(a, b)) modulo M.
"""
n = b - a
inv = pow(l - 1, -1, M)
q = (pow(l, n, M) - 1) * inv
return (a * q + (q - n) * inv) % M
I won't go into the evaluation of the sum here: it's a bit off-topic for this site, and it's hard to express without a good way to render formulas. If you want the details, that's a topic for https://math.stackexchange.com, or a page of fairly simple algebra.
Finally, we want to put all the intervals together. Here's a function to do that.
def fast_binary_concat(n):
"""
Fast version of slow_binary_concat.
"""
acc = 0
for a, b, l in split_by_bit_length(n + 1):
acc = (acc * pow(l, b - a, M) + subinterval_concat(a, b, l)) % M
return acc
A comparison with the slow version shows that we get the same results:
>>> fast_binary_concat(4)
220
>>> fast_binary_concat(10)
462911642
But the fast version can easily be evaluated for much larger inputs, where using the slow version would be infeasible:
>>> fast_binary_concat(10**9)
827129560
>>> fast_binary_concat(10**18)
945204784
You just have to note a simple pattern. Taking up your example for n=4, let's gradually build the solution starting from n=1.
1 -> 1 #1
2 -> 2^2(1) + 2 #6
3 -> 2^2[2^2(1)+2] + 3 #27
4 -> 2^3{2^2[2^2(1)+2]+3} + 4 #220
If you expand the coefficients of each term for n=4, you'll get the coefficients as:
1 -> (2^3)*(2^2)*(2^2)
2 -> (2^3)*(2^2)
3 -> (2^3)
4 -> (2^0)
Let the N be total number of bits in the string representation of our required number, and D(x) be the number of bits in x. The coefficients can then be written as
1 -> 2^(N-D(1))
2 -> 2^(N-D(1)-D(2))
3 -> 2^(N-D(1)-D(2)-D(3))
... and so on
Since the value of D(x) will be the same for all x between range (2^t, 2^(t+1)-1) for some given t, you can break the problem into such ranges and solve for each range using mathematics (not iteration). Since the number of such ranges will be log2(Given N), this should work in the given time limit.
As an example, the various ranges become:
1. 1 (D(x) = 1)
2. 2-3 (D(x) = 2)
3. 4-7 (D(x) = 3)
4. 8-15 (D(x) = 4)

Is there a function f(n) that returns the n:th combination in an ordered list of combinations without repetition?

Combinations without repetitions look like this, when the number of elements to choose from (n) is 5 and elements chosen (r) is 3:
0 1 2
0 1 3
0 1 4
0 2 3
0 2 4
0 3 4
1 2 3
1 2 4
1 3 4
2 3 4
As n and r grows the amount of combinations gets large pretty quickly. For (n,r) = (200,4) the number of combinations is 64684950.
It is easy to iterate the list with r nested for-loops, where the initial iterating value of each for loop is greater than the current iterating value of the for loop in which it is nested, as in this jsfiddle example:
https://dotnetfiddle.net/wHWK5o
What I would like is a function that calculates only one combination based on its index. Something like this:
tuple combination(i,n,r) {
return [combination with index i, when the number of elements to choose from is n and elements chosen is r]
Does anyone know if this is doable?
You would first need to impose some sort of ordering on the set of all combinations available for a given n and r, such that a linear index makes sense. I suggest we agree to keep our combinations in increasing order (or, at least, the indices of the individual elements), as in your example. How then can we go from a linear index to a combination?
Let us first build some intuition for the problem. Suppose we have n = 5 (e.g. the set {0, 1, 2, 3, 4}) and r = 3. How many unique combinations are there in this case? The answer is of course 5-choose-3, which evaluates to 10. Since we will sort our combinations in increasing order, consider for a minute how many combinations remain once we have exhausted all those starting with 0. This must be 4-choose-3, or 4 in total. In such a case, if we are looking for the combination at index 7 initially, this implies we must subtract 10 - 4 = 6 and search for the combination at index 1 in the set {1, 2, 3, 4}. This process continues until we find a new index that is smaller than this offset.
Once this process concludes, we know the first digit. Then we only need to determine the remaining r - 1 digits! The algorithm thus takes shape as follows (in Python, but this should not be too difficult to translate),
from math import factorial
def choose(n, k):
return factorial(n) // (factorial(k) * factorial(n - k))
def combination_at_idx(idx, elems, r):
if len(elems) == r:
# We are looking for r elements in a list of size r - thus, we need
# each element.
return elems
if len(elems) == 0 or len(elems) < r:
return []
combinations = choose(len(elems), r) # total number of combinations
remains = choose(len(elems) - 1, r) # combinations after selection
offset = combinations - remains
if idx >= offset: # combination does not start with first element
return combination_at_idx(idx - offset, elems[1:], r)
# We now know the first element of the combination, but *not* yet the next
# r - 1 elements. These need to be computed as well, again recursively.
return [elems[0]] + combination_at_idx(idx, elems[1:], r - 1)
Test-driving this with your initial input,
N = 5
R = 3
for idx in range(choose(N, R)):
print(idx, combination_at_idx(idx, list(range(N)), R))
I find,
0 [0, 1, 2]
1 [0, 1, 3]
2 [0, 1, 4]
3 [0, 2, 3]
4 [0, 2, 4]
5 [0, 3, 4]
6 [1, 2, 3]
7 [1, 2, 4]
8 [1, 3, 4]
9 [2, 3, 4]
Where the linear index is zero-based.
Start with the first element of the result. The value of that element depends on the number of combinations you can get with smaller elements. For each such smaller first element, the number of combinations with first element k is n − k − 1 choose r − 1, with potentially some of-by-one corrections. So you would sum over a bunch of binomial coefficients. Wolfram Alpha can help you compute such a sum, but the result still has a binomial coefficient in it. Solving for the largest k such that the sum doesn't exceed your given index i is a computation you can't do with something as simple as e.g. a square root. You need a loop to test possible values, e.g. like this:
def first_naive(i, n, r):
"""Find first element and index of first combination with that first element.
Returns a tuple of value and index.
Example: first_naive(8, 5, 3) returns (1, 6) because the combination with
index 8 is [1, 3, 4] so it starts with 1, and because the first combination
that starts with 1 is [1, 2, 3] which has index 6.
"""
s1 = 0
for k in range(n):
s2 = s1 + choose(n - k - 1, r - 1)
if i < s2:
return k, s1
s1 = s2
You can reduce the O(n) loop iterations to O(log n) steps using bisection, which is particularly relevant for large n. In that case I find it easier to think about numbering items from the end of your list. In the case of n = 5 and r = 3 you get choose(2, 2)=1 combinations starting with 2, choose(3,2)=3 combinations starting with 1 and choose(4,2)=6 combinations starting with 0. So in the general choose(n,r) binomial coefficient you increase the n with each step, and keep the r. Taking into account that sum(choose(k,r) for k in range(r,n+1)) can be simplified to choose(n+1,r+1), you can eventually come up with bisection conditions like the following:
def first_bisect(i, n, r):
nCr = choose(n, r)
k1 = r - 1
s1 = nCr
k2 = n
s2 = 0
while k2 - k1 > 1:
k3 = (k1 + k2) // 2
s3 = nCr - choose(k3, r)
if s3 <= i:
k2, s2 = k3, s3
else:
k1, s1 = k3, s3
return n - k2, s2
Once you know the first element to be k, you also know the index of the first combination with that same first element (also returned from my function above). You can use the difference between that first index and your actual index as input to a recursive call. The recursive call would be for r − 1 elements chosen from n − k − 1. And you'd add k + 1 to each element from the recursive call, since the top level returns values starting at 0 while the next element has to be greater than k in order to avoid duplication.
def combination(i, n, r):
"""Compute combination with a given index.
Equivalent to list(itertools.combinations(range(n), r))[i].
Each combination is represented as a tuple of ascending elements, and
combinations are ordered lexicograplically.
Args:
i: zero-based index of the combination
n: number of possible values, will be taken from range(n)
r: number of elements in result list
"""
if r == 0:
return []
k, ik = first_bisect(i, n, r)
return tuple([k] + [j + k + 1 for j in combination(i - ik, n - k - 1, r - 1)])
I've got a complete working example, including an implementation of choose, more detailed doc strings and tests for some basic assumptions.

Minimum Weight Triangulation Taking Forever

so I've been working on a program in Python that finds the minimum weight triangulation of a convex polygon. This means that it finds the weight(The sum of all the triangle perimeters), as well as the list of chords(lines going through the polygon that break it up into triangles, not the boundaries).
I was under the impression that I'm using the dynamic programming algorithm, however when I tried using a somewhat more complex polygon it takes forever(I'm not sure how long it takes because I haven't gotten it to finish).
It works fine with a 10 sided polygon, however I'm trying 25 and that's what is making it stall. My teacher gave me the polygons so I assume that the 25 one is supposed to work as well.
Since this algorithm is supposed to be O(n^3), the 25 sided polygon should take roughly 15.625 times longer to calculate, however it's taking way longer seeing that the 10 sided seems instantaneous.
Am I doing some sort of n operation in there that I'm not realizing? I can't see anything I'm doing, except maybe the last part where I get rid of the duplicates by turning the list into a set, however in my program I put a trace after the decomp before the conversion happens, and it's not even reaching that point.
Here's my code, if you guys need anymore info just please ask. Something in there is making it take longer than O(n^3) and I need to find it so I can trim it out.
#!/usr/bin/python
import math
def cost(v):
ab = math.sqrt(((v[0][0] - v[1][0])**2) + ((v[0][1] - v[1][1])**2))
bc = math.sqrt(((v[1][0] - v[2][0])**2) + ((v[1][1] - v[2][1])**2))
ac = math.sqrt(((v[0][0] - v[2][0])**2) + ((v[0][1] - v[2][1])**2))
return ab + bc + ac
def triang_to_chord(t, n):
if t[1] == t[0] + 1:
# a and b
if t[2] == t[1] + 1:
# single
# b and c
return ((t[0], t[2]), )
elif t[2] == n-1 and t[0] == 0:
# single
# c and a
return ((t[1], t[2]), )
else:
# double
return ((t[0], t[2]), (t[1], t[2]))
elif t[2] == t[1] + 1:
# b and c
if t[0] == 0 and t[2] == n-1:
#single
# c and a
return ((t[0], t[1]), )
else:
#double
return ((t[0], t[1]), (t[0], t[2]))
elif t[0] == 0 and t[2] == n-1:
# c and a
# double
return ((t[0], t[1]), (t[1], t[2]))
else:
# triple
return ((t[0], t[1]), (t[1], t[2]), (t[0], t[2]))
file_name = raw_input("Enter the polygon file name: ").rstrip()
file_obj = open(file_name)
vertices_raw = file_obj.read().split()
file_obj.close()
vertices = []
for i in range(len(vertices_raw)):
if i % 2 == 0:
vertices.append((float(vertices_raw[i]), float(vertices_raw[i+1])))
n = len(vertices)
def decomp(i, j):
if j <= i: return (0, [])
elif j == i+1: return (0, [])
cheap_chord = [float("infinity"), []]
old_cost = cheap_chord[0]
smallest_k = None
for k in range(i+1, j):
old_cost = cheap_chord[0]
itok = decomp(i, k)
ktoj = decomp(k, j)
cheap_chord[0] = min(cheap_chord[0], cost((vertices[i], vertices[j], vertices[k])) + itok[0] + ktoj[0])
if cheap_chord[0] < old_cost:
smallest_k = k
cheap_chord[1] = itok[1] + ktoj[1]
temp_chords = triang_to_chord(sorted((i, j, smallest_k)), n)
for c in temp_chords:
cheap_chord[1].append(c)
return cheap_chord
results = decomp(0, len(vertices) - 1)
chords = set(results[1])
print "Minimum sum of triangle perimeters = ", results[0]
print len(chords), "chords are:"
for c in chords:
print " ", c[0], " ", c[1]
I'll add the polygons I'm using, again the first one is solved right away, while the second one has been running for about 10 minutes so far.
FIRST ONE:
202.1177 93.5606
177.3577 159.5286
138.2164 194.8717
73.9028 189.3758
17.8465 165.4303
2.4919 92.5714
21.9581 45.3453
72.9884 3.1700
133.3893 -0.3667
184.0190 38.2951
SECOND ONE:
397.2494 204.0564
399.0927 245.7974
375.8121 295.3134
340.3170 338.5171
313.5651 369.6730
260.6411 384.6494
208.5188 398.7632
163.0483 394.1319
119.2140 387.0723
76.2607 352.6056
39.8635 319.8147
8.0842 273.5640
-1.4554 226.3238
8.6748 173.7644
20.8444 124.1080
34.3564 87.0327
72.7005 46.8978
117.8008 12.5129
162.9027 5.9481
210.7204 2.7835
266.0091 10.9997
309.2761 27.5857
351.2311 61.9199
377.3673 108.9847
390.0396 148.6748
It looks like you have an issue with the inefficient recurision here.
...
def decomp(i, j):
...
for k in range(i+1, j):
...
itok = decomp(i, k)
ktoj = decomp(k, j)
...
...
You've ran into the same kind of issue as a naive recursive implementation of the Fibonacci Numbers, but the way this algorithm works, it'll probably be much worst on the run time. Assuming that is the only issue with you're algorithm, then you just need to use memorization to ensure that the decomp is only calculated once for each unique input.
The way to spot this issue is to print out the values of i, j and k as the triple (i,j,k). In order to obtain a runtime of O(N^3), you shouldn't see the same exact triple twice. However, the triple (22, 24, 23), appears at least twice (in the 25), and is the first such duplicate. That shows the algorithm is calculating the same thing multiple times, which is inefficient, and is bumping up the performance well past O(N^3). I'll leave figuring out what the algorithms actual performance is to you as an exercise. Assuming there isn't something else wrong with the algorithm the algorithm should eventually stop.

Minimum number of element required to make a sequence that sums to a particular number

Suppose there is number s=12 , now i want to make sequence with the element a1+a2+.....+an=12.
The criteria is as follows-
n must be minimum.
a1 and an must be 1;
ai can differs a(i-1) by only 1,0 and -1.
for s=12 the result is 6.
So how to find the minimum value of n.
Algorithm for finding n from given s:
1.Find q = FLOOR( SQRT(s-1) )
2.Find r = q^2 + q
3.If s <= r then n = 2q, else n = 2q + 1
Example: s = 12
q = FLOOR( SQRT(12-1) ) = FLOOR(SQRT(11) = 3
r = 3^2 + 3 = 12
12 <= 12, therefore n = 2*3 = 6
Example: s = 160
q = FLOOR( SQRT(160-1) ) = FLOOR(SQRT(159) = 12
r = 12^2 + 12 = 156
159 > 156, therefore n = 2*12 + 1 = 25
and the 25-numbers sequence for
159: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,10,10,9,10,10,10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1
Here's a way to visualize the solution.
First, draw the smallest triangle (rows containing successful odd numbers of stars) that has a greater or equal number of stars to n. In this case, we draw a 16-star triangle.
*
***
*****
*******
Then we have to remove 16 - 12 = 4 more stars. We do this diagonally starting from the top.
1
**2
****3
******4
The result is:
**
****
******
Finally, add up the column heights to get the final answer:
1, 2, 3, 3, 2, 1.
There are two cases: s odd and s even. When s is odd, you have the sequence:
1, 2, 3, ..., (s-1)/2, (s-1)/2, (s-1)/2-1, (s-1)/2-2, ..., 1
when n is even you have:
1, 2, 3, ..., s/2, s/2-1, s/2-2, ..., 1
The maximum possible for any given series of length n is:
n is even => (n^2+2n)/4
n is odd => (n+1)^2/4
These two results are arrived at easily enough by looking at the simple arithmetic sum of series where in the case of n even it is twice the sum of the series 1...n/2. In the case of n odd it is twice the sum of the series 1...(n-1)/2 and add on n+1/2 (the middle element).
Clearly you can generate any positive number that is less than this max as long as n>3.
So the problem then becomes finding the smallest n with a max greater than your target.
Algorithmically I'd go for:
Find (sqrt(4*s)-1) and round up to the next odd number. Call this M. This is an easy to work out value and will represent the lowest odd n that will work.
Check M-1 to see if its max sum is greater than s. If so then that your n is M-1. Otherwise your n is M.
Thank all you answer me. I derived a simpler solution. The algorithm looks like-
First find what is the maximum sum that can be made using n element-
if n=1 -> 1 sum=1;
if n=2 -> 1,1 sum=2;
if n=3 -> 1,2,1 sum=4;
if n=4 -> 1,2,2,1 sum=6;
if n=5 -> 1,2,3,2,1 sum=9;
if n=6 -> 1,2,3,3,2,1 sum=12;
So from observation it is clear that form any number,n 9<n<=12 can be
made using 6 element, similarly number
6<n<=9 can be made at using 5 element.
So it require only a binary search to find the number of
element that make a particular number.

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