Optimization of Fibonacci sequence generating algorithm - recursion

Question

As we all know, the simplest algorithm to generate Fibonacci sequence is as follows:
if(n<=0) return 0;
else if(n==1) return 1;
f(n) = f(n-1) + f(n-2);
But this algorithm has some repetitive calculation. For example, if you calculate f(5), it will calculate f(4) and f(3). When you calculate f(4), it will again calculate both f(3) and f(2). Could someone give me a more time-efficient recursive algorithm?

Answer 1

I have read about some of the methods for calculating Fibonacci with efficient time complexity following are some of them -
Method 1 - Dynamic Programming
Now here the substructure is commonly known hence I'll straightly Jump to the solution -
static int fib(int n)
{
int f[] = new int[n+2]; // 1 extra to handle case, n = 0
int i;
f[0] = 0;
f[1] = 1;
for (i = 2; i <= n; i++)
{
f[i] = f[i-1] + f[i-2];
}
return f[n];
}
A space-optimized version of above can be done as follows -
static int fib(int n)
{
int a = 0, b = 1, c;
if (n == 0)
return a;
for (int i = 2; i <= n; i++)
{
c = a + b;
a = b;
b = c;
}
return b;
}
Method 2- ( Using power of the matrix {{1,1},{1,0}} )
This an O(n) which relies on the fact that if we n times multiply the matrix M = {{1,1},{1,0}} to itself (in other words calculate power(M, n )), then we get the (n+1)th Fibonacci number as the element at row and column (0, 0) in the resultant matrix. This solution would have O(n) time.
The matrix representation gives the following closed expression for the Fibonacci numbers:
fibonaccimatrix
static int fib(int n)
{
int F[][] = new int[][]{{1,1},{1,0}};
if (n == 0)
return 0;
power(F, n-1);
return F[0][0];
}
/*multiplies 2 matrices F and M of size 2*2, and
puts the multiplication result back to F[][] */
static void multiply(int F[][], int M[][])
{
int x = F[0][0]*M[0][0] + F[0][1]*M[1][0];
int y = F[0][0]*M[0][1] + F[0][1]*M[1][1];
int z = F[1][0]*M[0][0] + F[1][1]*M[1][0];
int w = F[1][0]*M[0][1] + F[1][1]*M[1][1];
F[0][0] = x;
F[0][1] = y;
F[1][0] = z;
F[1][1] = w;
}
/*function that calculates F[][] raise to the power n and puts the
result in F[][]*/
static void power(int F[][], int n)
{
int i;
int M[][] = new int[][]{{1,1},{1,0}};
// n - 1 times multiply the matrix to {{1,0},{0,1}}
for (i = 2; i <= n; i++)
multiply(F, M);
}
This can be optimized to work in O(Logn) time complexity. We can do recursive multiplication to get power(M, n) in the previous method.
static int fib(int n)
{
int F[][] = new int[][]{{1,1},{1,0}};
if (n == 0)
return 0;
power(F, n-1);
return F[0][0];
}
static void multiply(int F[][], int M[][])
{
int x = F[0][0]*M[0][0] + F[0][1]*M[1][0];
int y = F[0][0]*M[0][1] + F[0][1]*M[1][1];
int z = F[1][0]*M[0][0] + F[1][1]*M[1][0];
int w = F[1][0]*M[0][1] + F[1][1]*M[1][1];
F[0][0] = x;
F[0][1] = y;
F[1][0] = z;
F[1][1] = w;
}
static void power(int F[][], int n)
{
if( n == 0 || n == 1)
return;
int M[][] = new int[][]{{1,1},{1,0}};
power(F, n/2);
multiply(F, F);
if (n%2 != 0)
multiply(F, M);
}
Method 3 (O(log n) Time)
Below is one more interesting recurrence formula that can be used to find nth Fibonacci Number in O(log n) time.
If n is even then k = n/2:
F(n) = [2*F(k-1) + F(k)]*F(k)
If n is odd then k = (n + 1)/2
F(n) = F(k)*F(k) + F(k-1)*F(k-1)
How does this formula work?
The formula can be derived from the above matrix equation.
fibonaccimatrix
Taking determinant on both sides, we get
(-1)n = Fn+1Fn-1 – Fn2
Moreover, since AnAm = An+m for any square matrix A, the following identities can be derived (they are obtained from two different coefficients of the matrix product)
FmFn + Fm-1Fn-1 = Fm+n-1
By putting n = n+1,
FmFn+1 + Fm-1Fn = Fm+n
Putting m = n
F2n-1 = Fn2 + Fn-12
F2n = (Fn-1 + Fn+1)Fn = (2Fn-1 + Fn)Fn (Source: Wiki)
To get the formula to be proved, we simply need to do the following
If n is even, we can put k = n/2
If n is odd, we can put k = (n+1)/2
public static int fib(int n)
{
if (n == 0)
return 0;
if (n == 1 || n == 2)
return (f[n] = 1);
// If fib(n) is already computed
if (f[n] != 0)
return f[n];
int k = (n & 1) == 1? (n + 1) / 2
: n / 2;
// Applyting above formula [See value
// n&1 is 1 if n is odd, else 0.
f[n] = (n & 1) == 1? (fib(k) * fib(k) +
fib(k - 1) * fib(k - 1))
: (2 * fib(k - 1) + fib(k))
* fib(k);
return f[n];
}
Method 4 - Using a formula
In this method, we directly implement the formula for the nth term in the Fibonacci series. Time O(1) Space O(1)
Fn = {[(√5 + 1)/2] ^ n} / √5
static int fib(int n) {
double phi = (1 + Math.sqrt(5)) / 2;
return (int) Math.round(Math.pow(phi, n)
/ Math.sqrt(5));
}
Reference: http://www.maths.surrey.ac.uk/hosted-sites/R.Knott/Fibonacci/fibFormula.html

Answer 2

Look here for implementation in Erlang which uses formula
. It shows nice linear resulting behavior because in O(M(n) log n) part M(n) is exponential for big numbers. It calculates fib of one million in 2s where result has 208988 digits. The trick is that you can compute exponentiation in O(log n) multiplications using (tail) recursive formula (tail means with O(1) space when used proper compiler or rewrite to cycle):
% compute X^N
power(X, N) when is_integer(N), N >= 0 ->
power(N, X, 1).
power(0, _, Acc) ->
Acc;
power(N, X, Acc) ->
if N rem 2 =:= 1 ->
power(N - 1, X, Acc * X);
true ->
power(N div 2, X * X, Acc)
end.
where X and Acc you substitute with matrices. X will be initiated with and Acc with identity I equals to .

Answer 3

One simple way is to calculate it iteratively instead of recursively. This will calculate F(n) in linear time.
def fib(n):
a,b = 0,1
for i in range(n):
a,b = a+b,a
return a

Answer 4

Hint: One way you achieve faster results is by using Binet's formula:
Here is a way of doing it in Python:
from decimal import *
def fib(n):
return int((Decimal(1.6180339)**Decimal(n)-Decimal(-0.6180339)**Decimal(n))/Decimal(2.236067977))

Answer 5

you can save your results and use them :
public static long[] fibs;
public long fib(int n) {
fibs = new long[n];
return internalFib(n);
}
public long internalFib(int n) {
if (n<=2) return 1;
fibs[n-1] = fibs[n-1]==0 ? internalFib(n-1) : fibs[n-1];
fibs[n-2] = fibs[n-2]==0 ? internalFib(n-2) : fibs[n-2];
return fibs[n-1]+fibs[n-2];
}

Answer 6

F(n) = (φ^n)/√5 and round to nearest integer, where φ is the golden ratio....
φ^n can be calculated in O(lg(n)) time hence F(n) can be calculated in O(lg(n)) time.

Answer 7

// D Programming Language
void vFibonacci ( const ulong X, const ulong Y, const int Limit ) {
// Equivalent : if ( Limit != 10 ). Former ( Limit ^ 0xA ) is More Efficient However.
if ( Limit ^ 0xA ) {
write ( Y, " " ) ;
vFibonacci ( Y, Y + X, Limit + 1 ) ;
} ;
} ;
// Call As
// By Default the Limit is 10 Numbers
vFibonacci ( 0, 1, 0 ) ;

Answer 8

EDIT: I actually think Hynek Vychodil's answer is superior to mine, but I'm leaving this here just in case someone is looking for an alternate method.
I think the other methods are all valid, but not optimal. Using Binet's formula should give you the right answer in principle, but rounding to the closest integer will give some problems for large values of n. The other solutions will unnecessarily recalculate the values upto n every time you call the function, and so the function is not optimized for repeated calling.
In my opinion the best thing to do is to define a global array and then to add new values to the array IF needed. In Python:
import numpy
fibo=numpy.array([1,1])
last_index=fibo.size
def fib(n):
global fibo,last_index
if (n>0):
if(n>last_index):
for i in range(last_index+1,n+1):
fibo=numpy.concatenate((fibo,numpy.array([fibo[i-2]+fibo[i-3]])))
last_index=fibo.size
return fibo[n-1]
else:
print "fib called for index less than 1"
quit()
Naturally, if you need to call fib for n>80 (approximately) then you will need to implement arbitrary precision integers, which is easy to do in python.

Answer 9

This will execute faster, O(n)
def fibo(n):
a, b = 0, 1
for i in range(n):
if i == 0:
print(i)
elif i == 1:
print(i)
else:
temp = a
a = b
b += temp
print(b)
n = int(input())
fibo(n)