We Keep Coding

Sum of two squares in Python

I have written a code based on the two pointer algorithm to find the sum of two squares. My problem is that I run into a memory error when running this code for an input n=55555**2 + 66666**2. I am wondering how to correct this memory error.
def sum_of_two_squares(n):
look=tuple(range(n))
i=0
j = len(look)-1
while i < j:
x = (look[i])**2 + (look[j])**2
if x == n:
return (j,i)
elif x < n:
i += 1
else:
j -= 1
return None
n=55555**2 + 66666**2
print(sum_of_two_squares(n))
The problem Im trying to solve using two pointer algorithm is:
return a tuple of two positive integers whose squares add up to n, or return None if the integer n cannot be so expressed as a sum of two squares. The returned tuple must present the larger of its two numbers first. Furthermore, if some integer can be expressed as a sum of two squares in several ways, return the breakdown that maximizes the larger number. For example, the integer 85 allows two such representations 7*7 + 6*6 and 9*9 + 2*2, of which this function must therefore return (9, 2).

You're creating a tuple of size 55555^2 + 66666^2 = 7530713581
So if each element of the tuple takes one byte, the tuple will take up 7.01 GiB.
You'll need to either reduce the size of the tuple, or possibly make each element take up less space by specifying the type of each element: I would suggest looking into Numpy for the latter.
Specifically for this problem:
Why use a tuple at all?
You create the variable look which is just a list of integers:
look=tuple(range(n)) # = (0, 1, 2, ..., n-1)
Then you reference it, but never modify it. So: look[i] == i and look[j] == j.
So you're looking up numbers in a list of numbers. Why look them up? Why not just use i in place of look[i] and remove look altogether?

As others have pointed out, there's no need to use tuples at all.
One reasonably efficient way of solving this problem is to generate a series of integer square values (0, 1, 4, 9, etc...) and test whether or not subtracting these values from n leaves you with a value that is a perfect square.
You can generate a series of perfect squares efficiently by adding successive odd numbers together: 0 (+1) → 1 (+3) → 4 (+5) → 9 (etc.)
There are also various tricks you can use to test whether or not a number is a perfect square (for example, see the answers to this question), but — in Python, at least — it seems that simply testing the value of int(n**0.5) is faster than iterative methods such as a binary search.
def integer_sqrt(n):
# If n is a perfect square, return its (integer) square
# root. Otherwise return -1
r = int(n**0.5)
if r * r == n:
return r
return -1
def sum_of_two_squares(n):
# If n can be expressed as the sum of two squared integers,
# return these integers as a tuple. Otherwise return <None>
# i: iterator variable
# x: value of i**2
# y: value we need to add to x to obtain (i+1)**2
i, x, y = 0, 0, 1
# If i**2 > n / 2, then we can stop searching
max_x = n >> 1
while x <= max_x:
r = integer_sqrt(n-x)
if r >= 0:
return (i, r)
i, x, y = i+1, x+y, y+2
return None
This returns a solution to sum_of_two_squares(55555**2 + 66666**2) in a fraction of a second.

You do not need the ranges at all, and certainly do not need to convert them into tuples. They take a ridiculous amount of space, but you only need their current elements, numbers i and j. Also, as the friendly commenter suggested, you can start with sqrt(n) to improve the performance further.
def sum_of_two_squares(n):
i = 1
j = int(n ** (1/2))
while i < j:
x = i * i + j * j
if x == n:
return j, i
if x < n:
i += 1
else:
j -= 1
Bear in mind that the problem takes a very long time to be solved. Be patient. And no, NumPy won't help. There is nothing here to vectorize.

What is the math program I'm trying to solve in python?

I am trying to solve this math problem in python, and I'm not sure what it is called:
The answer X is always 100
Given a list of 5 integers, their sum would equal X
Each integer has to be between 1 and 25
The integers can appear one or more times in the list
I want to find all the possible unique lists of 5 integers that match.
These would match:
20,20,20,20,20
25,25,25,20,5
10,25,19,21,25
along with many more.
I looked at itertools.permutations, but I don't think that handles duplicate integers in the list. I'm thinking there must be a standard math algorithm for this, but my search queries must be poor.
Only other thing to mention is if it matters that the list size could change from 10 integers to some other length (6, 24, etc).

This is a constraint satisfaction problem. These can often be solved by a method called linear programming: You fix one part of the solution and then solve the remaining subproblem. In Python, we can implement this approach with a recursive function:
def csp_solutions(target_sum, n, i_min=1, i_max=25):
domain = range(i_min, i_max + 1)
if n == 1:
if target_sum in domain:
return [[target_sum]]
else:
return []
solutions = []
for i in domain:
# Check if a solution is still possible when i is picked:
if (n - 1) * i_min <= target_sum - i <= (n - 1) * i_max:
# Construct solutions recursively:
solutions.extend([[i] + sol
for sol in csp_solutions(target_sum - i, n - 1)])
return solutions
all_solutions = csp_solutions(100, 5)
This yields 23746 solutions, in agreement with the answer by Alex Reynolds.

Another approach with Numpy:
#!/usr/bin/env python
import numpy as np
start = 1
end = 25
entries = 5
total = 100
a = np.arange(start, end + 1)
c = np.array(np.meshgrid(a, a, a, a, a)).T.reshape(-1, entries)
assert(len(c) == pow(end, entries))
s = c.sum(axis=1)
#
# filter all combinations for those that meet sum criterion
#
valid_combinations = c[np.where(s == total)]
print(len(valid_combinations)) # 23746
#
# filter those combinations for unique permutations
#
unique_permutations = set(tuple(sorted(x)) for x in valid_combinations)
print(len(unique_permutations)) # 376

You want combinations_with_replacement from itertools library. Here is what the code would look like:
from itertools import combinations_with_replacement
values = [i for i in range(1, 26)]
candidates = []
for tuple5 in combinations_with_replacement(values, 5):
if sum(tuple5) == 100:
candidates.append(tuple5)
For me on this problem I get 376 candidates. As mentioned in the comments above if these are counted once for each arrangement of the 5-pair, then you'd want to look at all, permutations of the 5 candidates-which may not be all distinct. For example (20,20,20,20,20) is the same regardless of how you arrange the indices. However, (21,20,20,20,19) is not-this one has some distinct arrangements.

I think that this could be what you are searching for: given a target number SUM, a left treshold L, a right treshold R and a size K, find all the possible lists of K elements between L and R which sum gives SUM. There isn't a specific name for this problem though, as much as I was able to find.

How can I create a list of R=10000 booleans called inside in Python?

import random, math
random.seed(1)
def in_circle(x, origin = [0]*2):
"""
This function determines if a two-dimensional point
falls within the unit circle.
"""
if len(x) != 2:
return "x is not two-dimensional!"
elif distance(x, origin) < 1:
return True
else:
return False
print(in_circle((1,1)))
Next, I want to determine whether each point in x falls within the unit circle centered at (0,0) using the function "in_circle". How do I do it?
My level of programming - Beginner

I don't know how your distance function looks like but assuming your x variable passed to the function has 10000 points, this is a way you can compute your boolean array. While calling the function in_circle, you can pass your array/list of all 10000 points and replace [(1,1), (1,2), (2,2)]) in in_circle([(1,1), (1,2), (2,2)]) by your array/list containing points. Let me know if it doesn't work.
In this solution, you will call the function in_circle once by passing all the 10000 points together and then the for loop will compute the distances inside the function. In my opinion, it is better than putting the for loop outside and calling the function 10000 times for each point one by one.
import random, math
random.seed(1)
def in_circle(x, origin = [0]*2):
bool_array = []
for point in x: # assuming x contains 10000 points
if len(x) != 2:
print ("x is not two-dimensional!")
continue
elif distance(x, origin) < 1:
bool_array.append(True)
else:
bool_array.append(False)
return bool_array
bool_array = in_circle([(1,1), (1,2), (2,2)])

as I understand, you have the list of tuples like this
l = [(x1, y1),
(x2, y2),
...
(x10000, y10000)]
what you need in that case is to iterate over it
but first, create a list that will contain booleans
bools = []
for xy in l: # xy is tuple
bools.append(in_circle(xy))
that was begginer level, but there's even fancier way of doing it:
bools = [in_circle(xy) for xy in l]

Hi Just put your 1000 points or any amount of coordinates in a list li below and run your function over them using a loop and you will get your booleans in a list X. Like:
x=[] #declare an empty list where boolean value needs to be stored
li=[(1,1),(0,0),(-1,1)]
for i in range(0,len(li)):
x1=in_circle(li[i])
x.append(x1)

If lever of programming beginner, you will find useful to also look at these concepts, they ll be handy in your programmer future:
map, lambda and generators.
You could define simple functions using lambda functions.
As:
in_circle = lambda (x, y): True if Math.sqrt( Math.pow(x,2) + Math.pow(y,2) ) < 1 else False
# assuming circle has center 0, 0 and radius 1
2.
and then map the function to a list of points:
map( in_circle, your_list)
Note that in lambda the syntax (x, y) is because you are passing a tuple as one argument, and your list is formed like:
your_list = [(0,1),(0, 0.5), (0.3, 0.4) ...]
3.
Instead of list, you can also use a generator, a structure very handy in iterations if you don't need to use again your list.
syntax is similar (note the brakets ! ( VS [ )
your_point = [ (random.random(), random.random()) for i in range(n) ]
# list comprehension
your_point = ( (random.random(), random.random()) for i in range(n) )
# generator
4.
So you could generate a list of N booleans like:
n = 10000
your_point = ( (random.random(), random.random()) for i in range(n) )
bool_list = map( in_circle, your_list)
For your curiosity in difference between lamdba and regular functions, see also:
what is the difference for python between lambda and regular function?
For your interest in generators VS lists comprehension:
Generator Expressions vs. List Comprehension

Creating two concatenated arrays from a generator

Consider the following example in Python 2.7. We have an arbitrary function f() that returns two 1-dimensional numpy arrays. Note that in general f() may returns arrays of different size and that the size may depend on the input.
Now we would like to call map on f() and concatenate the results into two separate new arrays.
import numpy as np
def f(x):
return np.arange(x),np.ones(x,dtype=int)
inputs = np.arange(1,10)
result = map(f,inputs)
x = np.concatenate([i[0] for i in result])
y = np.concatenate([i[1] for i in result])
This gives the intended result. However, since result may take up much memory, it may be preferable to use a generator by calling imap instead of map.
from itertools import imap
result = imap(f,inputs)
x = np.concatenate([i[0] for i in result])
y = np.concatenate([i[1] for i in result])
However, this gives an error because the generator is empty at the point where we calculate y.
Is there a way to use the generator only once and still create these two concatenated arrays? I'm looking for a solution without a for loop, since it is rather inefficient to repeatedly concatenate/append arrays.
Thanks in advance.

Is there a way to use the generator only once and still create these two concatenated arrays?
Yes, a generator can be cloned with tee:
import itertools
a, b = itertools.tee(result)
x = np.concatenate([i[0] for i in a])
y = np.concatenate([i[1] for i in b])
However, using tee does not help with the memory usage in your case. The above solution would require 5 N memory to run:
N for caching the generator inside tee,
2 N for the list comprehensions inside np.concatenate calls,
2 N for the concatenated arrays.
Clearly, we could do better by dropping the tee:
x_acc = []
y_acc = []
for x_i, y_i in result:
x_acc.append(x_i)
y_acc.append(y_i)
x = np.concatenate(x_acc)
y = np.concatenate(y_acc)
This shaved off one more N, leaving 4 N. Going further means dropping the intermediate lists and preallocating x and y. Note, that you needn't know the exact sizes of the arrays, only the upper bounds:
x = np.empty(capacity)
y = np.empty(capacity)
right = 0
for x_i, y_i in result:
left = right
right += len(x_i) # == len(y_i)
x[left:right] = x_i
y[left:right] = y_i
x = x[:right].copy()
y = y[:right].copy()
In fact, you don't even need an upper bound. Just ensure that x and y are big enough to accommodate the new item:
for x_i, y_i in result:
# ...
if right >= len(x):
# It would be slightly trickier for >1D, but the idea
# remains the same: alter the 0-the dimension to fit
# the new item.
new_capacity = max(right, len(x)) * 1.5
x = x.resize(new_capacity)
y = y.resize(new_capacity)

Fastest way to check if a value exists in a list

What is the fastest way to check if a value exists in a very large list?

7 in a
Clearest and fastest way to do it.
You can also consider using a set, but constructing that set from your list may take more time than faster membership testing will save. The only way to be certain is to benchmark well. (this also depends on what operations you require)

As stated by others, in can be very slow for large lists. Here are some comparisons of the performances for in, set and bisect. Note the time (in second) is in log scale.
Code for testing:
import random
import bisect
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import math
import time
def method_in(a, b, c):
start_time = time.time()
for i, x in enumerate(a):
if x in b:
c[i] = 1
return time.time() - start_time
def method_set_in(a, b, c):
start_time = time.time()
s = set(b)
for i, x in enumerate(a):
if x in s:
c[i] = 1
return time.time() - start_time
def method_bisect(a, b, c):
start_time = time.time()
b.sort()
for i, x in enumerate(a):
index = bisect.bisect_left(b, x)
if index < len(a):
if x == b[index]:
c[i] = 1
return time.time() - start_time
def profile():
time_method_in = []
time_method_set_in = []
time_method_bisect = []
# adjust range down if runtime is too long or up if there are too many zero entries in any of the time_method lists
Nls = [x for x in range(10000, 30000, 1000)]
for N in Nls:
a = [x for x in range(0, N)]
random.shuffle(a)
b = [x for x in range(0, N)]
random.shuffle(b)
c = [0 for x in range(0, N)]
time_method_in.append(method_in(a, b, c))
time_method_set_in.append(method_set_in(a, b, c))
time_method_bisect.append(method_bisect(a, b, c))
plt.plot(Nls, time_method_in, marker='o', color='r', linestyle='-', label='in')
plt.plot(Nls, time_method_set_in, marker='o', color='b', linestyle='-', label='set')
plt.plot(Nls, time_method_bisect, marker='o', color='g', linestyle='-', label='bisect')
plt.xlabel('list size', fontsize=18)
plt.ylabel('log(time)', fontsize=18)
plt.legend(loc='upper left')
plt.yscale('log')
plt.show()
profile()

You could put your items into a set. Set lookups are very efficient.
Try:
s = set(a)
if 7 in s:
# do stuff
edit In a comment you say that you'd like to get the index of the element. Unfortunately, sets have no notion of element position. An alternative is to pre-sort your list and then use binary search every time you need to find an element.

The original question was:
What is the fastest way to know if a value exists in a list (a list
with millions of values in it) and what its index is?
Thus there are two things to find:
is an item in the list, and
what is the index (if in the list).
Towards this, I modified #xslittlegrass code to compute indexes in all cases, and added an additional method.
Results
Methods are:
in--basically if x in b: return b.index(x)
try--try/catch on b.index(x) (skips having to check if x in b)
set--basically if x in set(b): return b.index(x)
bisect--sort b with its index, binary search for x in sorted(b).
Note mod from #xslittlegrass who returns the index in the sorted b,
rather than the original b)
reverse--form a reverse lookup dictionary d for b; then
d[x] provides the index of x.
Results show that method 5 is the fastest.
Interestingly the try and the set methods are equivalent in time.
Test Code
import random
import bisect
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import math
import timeit
import itertools
def wrapper(func, *args, **kwargs):
" Use to produced 0 argument function for call it"
# Reference https://www.pythoncentral.io/time-a-python-function/
def wrapped():
return func(*args, **kwargs)
return wrapped
def method_in(a,b,c):
for i,x in enumerate(a):
if x in b:
c[i] = b.index(x)
else:
c[i] = -1
return c
def method_try(a,b,c):
for i, x in enumerate(a):
try:
c[i] = b.index(x)
except ValueError:
c[i] = -1
def method_set_in(a,b,c):
s = set(b)
for i,x in enumerate(a):
if x in s:
c[i] = b.index(x)
else:
c[i] = -1
return c
def method_bisect(a,b,c):
" Finds indexes using bisection "
# Create a sorted b with its index
bsorted = sorted([(x, i) for i, x in enumerate(b)], key = lambda t: t[0])
for i,x in enumerate(a):
index = bisect.bisect_left(bsorted,(x, ))
c[i] = -1
if index < len(a):
if x == bsorted[index][0]:
c[i] = bsorted[index][1] # index in the b array
return c
def method_reverse_lookup(a, b, c):
reverse_lookup = {x:i for i, x in enumerate(b)}
for i, x in enumerate(a):
c[i] = reverse_lookup.get(x, -1)
return c
def profile():
Nls = [x for x in range(1000,20000,1000)]
number_iterations = 10
methods = [method_in, method_try, method_set_in, method_bisect, method_reverse_lookup]
time_methods = [[] for _ in range(len(methods))]
for N in Nls:
a = [x for x in range(0,N)]
random.shuffle(a)
b = [x for x in range(0,N)]
random.shuffle(b)
c = [0 for x in range(0,N)]
for i, func in enumerate(methods):
wrapped = wrapper(func, a, b, c)
time_methods[i].append(math.log(timeit.timeit(wrapped, number=number_iterations)))
markers = itertools.cycle(('o', '+', '.', '>', '2'))
colors = itertools.cycle(('r', 'b', 'g', 'y', 'c'))
labels = itertools.cycle(('in', 'try', 'set', 'bisect', 'reverse'))
for i in range(len(time_methods)):
plt.plot(Nls,time_methods[i],marker = next(markers),color=next(colors),linestyle='-',label=next(labels))
plt.xlabel('list size', fontsize=18)
plt.ylabel('log(time)', fontsize=18)
plt.legend(loc = 'upper left')
plt.show()
profile()

def check_availability(element, collection: iter):
return element in collection
Usage
check_availability('a', [1,2,3,4,'a','b','c'])
I believe this is the fastest way to know if a chosen value is in an array.

a = [4,2,3,1,5,6]
index = dict((y,x) for x,y in enumerate(a))
try:
a_index = index[7]
except KeyError:
print "Not found"
else:
print "found"
This will only be a good idea if a doesn't change and thus we can do the dict() part once and then use it repeatedly. If a does change, please provide more detail on what you are doing.

Be aware that the in operator tests not only equality (==) but also identity (is), the in logic for lists is roughly equivalent to the following (it's actually written in C and not Python though, at least in CPython):
for element in s:
if element is target:
# fast check for identity implies equality
return True
if element == target:
# slower check for actual equality
return True
return False
In most circumstances this detail is irrelevant, but in some circumstances it might leave a Python novice surprised, for example, numpy.NAN has the unusual property of being not being equal to itself:
>>> import numpy
>>> numpy.NAN == numpy.NAN
False
>>> numpy.NAN is numpy.NAN
True
>>> numpy.NAN in [numpy.NAN]
True
To distinguish between these unusual cases you could use any() like:
>>> lst = [numpy.NAN, 1 , 2]
>>> any(element == numpy.NAN for element in lst)
False
>>> any(element is numpy.NAN for element in lst)
True
Note the in logic for lists with any() would be:
any(element is target or element == target for element in lst)
However, I should emphasize that this is an edge case, and for the vast majority of cases the in operator is highly optimised and exactly what you want of course (either with a list or with a set).

If you only want to check the existence of one element in a list,
7 in list_data
is the fastest solution. Note though that
7 in set_data
is a near-free operation, independently of the size of the set! Creating a set from a large list is 300 to 400 times slower than in, so if you need to check for many elements, creating a set first is faster.
Plot created with perfplot:
import perfplot
import numpy as np
def setup(n):
data = np.arange(n)
np.random.shuffle(data)
return data, set(data)
def list_in(data):
return 7 in data[0]
def create_set_from_list(data):
return set(data[0])
def set_in(data):
return 7 in data[1]
b = perfplot.bench(
setup=setup,
kernels=[list_in, set_in, create_set_from_list],
n_range=[2 ** k for k in range(24)],
xlabel="len(data)",
equality_check=None,
)
b.save("out.png")
b.show()

It sounds like your application might gain advantage from the use of a Bloom Filter data structure.
In short, a bloom filter look-up can tell you very quickly if a value is DEFINITELY NOT present in a set. Otherwise, you can do a slower look-up to get the index of a value that POSSIBLY MIGHT BE in the list. So if your application tends to get the "not found" result much more often then the "found" result, you might see a speed up by adding a Bloom Filter.
For details, Wikipedia provides a good overview of how Bloom Filters work, and a web search for "python bloom filter library" will provide at least a couple useful implementations.

This is not the code, but the algorithm for very fast searching.
If your list and the value you are looking for are all numbers, this is pretty straightforward. If strings: look at the bottom:
-Let "n" be the length of your list
-Optional step: if you need the index of the element: add a second column to the list with current index of elements (0 to n-1) - see later
Order your list or a copy of it (.sort())
Loop through:
Compare your number to the n/2th element of the list
If larger, loop again between indexes n/2-n
If smaller, loop again between indexes 0-n/2
If the same: you found it
Keep narrowing the list until you have found it or only have 2 numbers (below and above the one you are looking for)
This will find any element in at most 19 steps for a list of 1.000.000 (log(2)n to be precise)
If you also need the original position of your number, look for it in the second, index column.
If your list is not made of numbers, the method still works and will be fastest, but you may need to define a function which can compare/order strings.
Of course, this needs the investment of the sorted() method, but if you keep reusing the same list for checking, it may be worth it.

Edge case for spatial data
There are probably faster algorithms for handling spatial data (e.g. refactoring to use a k-d tree), but the special case of checking if a vector is in an array is useful:
If you have spatial data (i.e. cartesian coordinates)
If you have integer masks (i.e. array filtering)
In this case, I was interested in knowing if an (undirected) edge defined by two points was in a collection of (undirected) edges, such that
(pair in unique_pairs) | (pair[::-1] in unique_pairs) for pair in pairs
where pair constitutes two vectors of arbitrary length (i.e. shape (2,N)).
If the distance between these vectors is meaningful, then the test can be expressed by a floating point inequality like
test_result = Norm(v1 - v2) < Tol
and "Value exists in List" is simply any(test_result).
Example code and dummy test set generators for integer pairs and R3 vector pairs are below.
# 3rd party
import numpy as np
import numpy.linalg as LA
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
# optional
try:
from tqdm import tqdm
except ModuleNotFoundError:
def tqdm(X, *args, **kwargs):
return X
print('tqdm not found. tqdm is a handy progress bar module.')
def get_float_r3_pairs(size):
""" generate dummy vector pairs in R3 (i.e. case of spatial data) """
coordinates = np.random.random(size=(size, 3))
pairs = []
for b in coordinates:
for a in coordinates:
pairs.append((a,b))
pairs = np.asarray(pairs)
return pairs
def get_int_pairs(size):
""" generate dummy integer pairs (i.e. case of array masking) """
coordinates = np.random.randint(0, size, size)
pairs = []
for b in coordinates:
for a in coordinates:
pairs.append((a,b))
pairs = np.asarray(pairs)
return pairs
def float_tol_pair_in_pairs(pair:np.ndarray, pairs:np.ndarray) -> np.ndarray:
"""
True if abs(a0 - b0) <= tol & abs(a1 - b1) <= tol for (ai1, aj2), (bi1, bj2)
in [(a01, a02), ... (aik, ajl)]
NB this is expected to be called in iteration so no sanitization is performed.
Parameters
----------
pair : np.ndarray
pair of vectors with shape (2, M)
pairs : np.ndarray
collection of vector pairs with shape (N, 2, M)
Returns
-------
np.ndarray
(pair in pairs) | (pair[::-1] in pairs).
"""
m1 = np.sum( abs(LA.norm(pairs - pair, axis=2)) <= (1e-03, 1e-03), axis=1 ) == 2
m2 = np.sum( abs(LA.norm(pairs - pair[::-1], axis=2)) <= (1e-03, 1e-03), axis=1 ) == 2
return m1 | m2
def get_unique_pairs(pairs:np.ndarray) -> np.ndarray:
"""
apply float_tol_pair_in_pairs for pair in pairs
Parameters
----------
pairs : np.ndarray
collection of vector pairs with shape (N, 2, M)
Returns
-------
np.ndarray
pair if not ((pair in rv) | (pair[::-1] in rv)) for pair in pairs
"""
pairs = np.asarray(pairs).reshape((len(pairs), 2, -1))
rv = [pairs[0]]
for pair in tqdm(pairs[1:], desc='finding unique pairs...'):
if not any(float_tol_pair_in_pairs(pair, rv)):
rv.append(pair)
return np.array(rv)