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How to prevent Python from identifying a very large float as integer [duplicate]

How could I check if a number is a perfect square?
Speed is of no concern, for now, just working.
See also: Integer square root in python.

The problem with relying on any floating point computation (math.sqrt(x), or x**0.5) is that you can't really be sure it's exact (for sufficiently large integers x, it won't be, and might even overflow). Fortunately (if one's in no hurry;-) there are many pure integer approaches, such as the following...:
def is_square(apositiveint):
x = apositiveint // 2
seen = set([x])
while x * x != apositiveint:
x = (x + (apositiveint // x)) // 2
if x in seen: return False
seen.add(x)
return True
for i in range(110, 130):
print i, is_square(i)
Hint: it's based on the "Babylonian algorithm" for square root, see wikipedia. It does work for any positive number for which you have enough memory for the computation to proceed to completion;-).
Edit: let's see an example...
x = 12345678987654321234567 ** 2
for i in range(x, x+2):
print i, is_square(i)
this prints, as desired (and in a reasonable amount of time, too;-):
152415789666209426002111556165263283035677489 True
152415789666209426002111556165263283035677490 False
Please, before you propose solutions based on floating point intermediate results, make sure they work correctly on this simple example -- it's not that hard (you just need a few extra checks in case the sqrt computed is a little off), just takes a bit of care.
And then try with x**7 and find clever way to work around the problem you'll get,
OverflowError: long int too large to convert to float
you'll have to get more and more clever as the numbers keep growing, of course.
If I was in a hurry, of course, I'd use gmpy -- but then, I'm clearly biased;-).
>>> import gmpy
>>> gmpy.is_square(x**7)
1
>>> gmpy.is_square(x**7 + 1)
0
Yeah, I know, that's just so easy it feels like cheating (a bit the way I feel towards Python in general;-) -- no cleverness at all, just perfect directness and simplicity (and, in the case of gmpy, sheer speed;-)...

Use Newton's method to quickly zero in on the nearest integer square root, then square it and see if it's your number. See isqrt.
Python ≥ 3.8 has math.isqrt. If using an older version of Python, look for the "def isqrt(n)" implementation here.
import math
def is_square(i: int) -> bool:
return i == math.isqrt(i) ** 2

Since you can never depend on exact comparisons when dealing with floating point computations (such as these ways of calculating the square root), a less error-prone implementation would be
import math
def is_square(integer):
root = math.sqrt(integer)
return integer == int(root + 0.5) ** 2
Imagine integer is 9. math.sqrt(9) could be 3.0, but it could also be something like 2.99999 or 3.00001, so squaring the result right off isn't reliable. Knowing that int takes the floor value, increasing the float value by 0.5 first means we'll get the value we're looking for if we're in a range where float still has a fine enough resolution to represent numbers near the one for which we are looking.

If youre interested, I have a pure-math response to a similar question at math stackexchange, "Detecting perfect squares faster than by extracting square root".
My own implementation of isSquare(n) may not be the best, but I like it. Took me several months of study in math theory, digital computation and python programming, comparing myself to other contributors, etc., to really click with this method. I like its simplicity and efficiency though. I havent seen better. Tell me what you think.
def isSquare(n):
## Trivial checks
if type(n) != int: ## integer
return False
if n < 0: ## positivity
return False
if n == 0: ## 0 pass
return True
## Reduction by powers of 4 with bit-logic
while n&3 == 0:
n=n>>2
## Simple bit-logic test. All perfect squares, in binary,
## end in 001, when powers of 4 are factored out.
if n&7 != 1:
return False
if n==1:
return True ## is power of 4, or even power of 2
## Simple modulo equivalency test
c = n%10
if c in {3, 7}:
return False ## Not 1,4,5,6,9 in mod 10
if n % 7 in {3, 5, 6}:
return False ## Not 1,2,4 mod 7
if n % 9 in {2,3,5,6,8}:
return False
if n % 13 in {2,5,6,7,8,11}:
return False
## Other patterns
if c == 5: ## if it ends in a 5
if (n//10)%10 != 2:
return False ## then it must end in 25
if (n//100)%10 not in {0,2,6}:
return False ## and in 025, 225, or 625
if (n//100)%10 == 6:
if (n//1000)%10 not in {0,5}:
return False ## that is, 0625 or 5625
else:
if (n//10)%4 != 0:
return False ## (4k)*10 + (1,9)
## Babylonian Algorithm. Finding the integer square root.
## Root extraction.
s = (len(str(n))-1) // 2
x = (10**s) * 4
A = {x, n}
while x * x != n:
x = (x + (n // x)) >> 1
if x in A:
return False
A.add(x)
return True
Pretty straight forward. First it checks that we have an integer, and a positive one at that. Otherwise there is no point. It lets 0 slip through as True (necessary or else next block is infinite loop).
The next block of code systematically removes powers of 4 in a very fast sub-algorithm using bit shift and bit logic operations. We ultimately are not finding the isSquare of our original n but of a k<n that has been scaled down by powers of 4, if possible. This reduces the size of the number we are working with and really speeds up the Babylonian method, but also makes other checks faster too.
The third block of code performs a simple Boolean bit-logic test. The least significant three digits, in binary, of any perfect square are 001. Always. Save for leading zeros resulting from powers of 4, anyway, which has already been accounted for. If it fails the test, you immediately know it isnt a square. If it passes, you cant be sure.
Also, if we end up with a 1 for a test value then the test number was originally a power of 4, including perhaps 1 itself.
Like the third block, the fourth tests the ones-place value in decimal using simple modulus operator, and tends to catch values that slip through the previous test. Also a mod 7, mod 8, mod 9, and mod 13 test.
The fifth block of code checks for some of the well-known perfect square patterns. Numbers ending in 1 or 9 are preceded by a multiple of four. And numbers ending in 5 must end in 5625, 0625, 225, or 025. I had included others but realized they were redundant or never actually used.
Lastly, the sixth block of code resembles very much what the top answerer - Alex Martelli - answer is. Basically finds the square root using the ancient Babylonian algorithm, but restricting it to integer values while ignoring floating point. Done both for speed and extending the magnitudes of values that are testable. I used sets instead of lists because it takes far less time, I used bit shifts instead of division by two, and I smartly chose an initial start value much more efficiently.
By the way, I did test Alex Martelli's recommended test number, as well as a few numbers many orders magnitude larger, such as:
x=1000199838770766116385386300483414671297203029840113913153824086810909168246772838680374612768821282446322068401699727842499994541063844393713189701844134801239504543830737724442006577672181059194558045164589783791764790043104263404683317158624270845302200548606715007310112016456397357027095564872551184907513312382763025454118825703090010401842892088063527451562032322039937924274426211671442740679624285180817682659081248396873230975882215128049713559849427311798959652681930663843994067353808298002406164092996533923220683447265882968239141724624870704231013642255563984374257471112743917655991279898690480703935007493906644744151022265929975993911186879561257100479593516979735117799410600147341193819147290056586421994333004992422258618475766549646258761885662783430625 ** 2
for i in range(x, x+2):
print(i, isSquare(i))
printed the following results:
1000399717477066534083185452789672211951514938424998708930175541558932213310056978758103599452364409903384901149641614494249195605016959576235097480592396214296565598519295693079257885246632306201885850365687426564365813280963724310434494316592041592681626416195491751015907716210235352495422858432792668507052756279908951163972960239286719854867504108121432187033786444937064356645218196398775923710931242852937602515835035177768967470757847368349565128635934683294155947532322786360581473152034468071184081729335560769488880138928479829695277968766082973795720937033019047838250608170693879209655321034310764422462828792636246742456408134706264621790736361118589122797268261542115823201538743148116654378511916000714911467547209475246784887830649309238110794938892491396597873160778553131774466638923135932135417900066903068192088883207721545109720968467560224268563643820599665232314256575428214983451466488658896488012211237139254674708538347237589290497713613898546363590044902791724541048198769085430459186735166233549186115282574626012296888817453914112423361525305960060329430234696000121420787598967383958525670258016851764034555105019265380321048686563527396844220047826436035333266263375049097675787975100014823583097518824871586828195368306649956481108708929669583308777347960115138098217676704862934389659753628861667169905594181756523762369645897154232744410732552956489694024357481100742138381514396851789639339362228442689184910464071202445106084939268067445115601375050153663645294106475257440167535462278022649865332161044187890625 True
1000399717477066534083185452789672211951514938424998708930175541558932213310056978758103599452364409903384901149641614494249195605016959576235097480592396214296565598519295693079257885246632306201885850365687426564365813280963724310434494316592041592681626416195491751015907716210235352495422858432792668507052756279908951163972960239286719854867504108121432187033786444937064356645218196398775923710931242852937602515835035177768967470757847368349565128635934683294155947532322786360581473152034468071184081729335560769488880138928479829695277968766082973795720937033019047838250608170693879209655321034310764422462828792636246742456408134706264621790736361118589122797268261542115823201538743148116654378511916000714911467547209475246784887830649309238110794938892491396597873160778553131774466638923135932135417900066903068192088883207721545109720968467560224268563643820599665232314256575428214983451466488658896488012211237139254674708538347237589290497713613898546363590044902791724541048198769085430459186735166233549186115282574626012296888817453914112423361525305960060329430234696000121420787598967383958525670258016851764034555105019265380321048686563527396844220047826436035333266263375049097675787975100014823583097518824871586828195368306649956481108708929669583308777347960115138098217676704862934389659753628861667169905594181756523762369645897154232744410732552956489694024357481100742138381514396851789639339362228442689184910464071202445106084939268067445115601375050153663645294106475257440167535462278022649865332161044187890626 False
And it did this in 0.33 seconds.
In my opinion, my algorithm works the same as Alex Martelli's, with all the benefits thereof, but has the added benefit highly efficient simple-test rejections that save a lot of time, not to mention the reduction in size of test numbers by powers of 4, which improves speed, efficiency, accuracy and the size of numbers that are testable. Probably especially true in non-Python implementations.
Roughly 99% of all integers are rejected as non-Square before Babylonian root extraction is even implemented, and in 2/3 the time it would take the Babylonian to reject the integer. And though these tests dont speed up the process that significantly, the reduction in all test numbers to an odd by dividing out all powers of 4 really accelerates the Babylonian test.
I did a time comparison test. I tested all integers from 1 to 10 Million in succession. Using just the Babylonian method by itself (with my specially tailored initial guess) it took my Surface 3 an average of 165 seconds (with 100% accuracy). Using just the logical tests in my algorithm (excluding the Babylonian), it took 127 seconds, it rejected 99% of all integers as non-Square without mistakenly rejecting any perfect squares. Of those integers that passed, only 3% were perfect Squares (a much higher density). Using the full algorithm above that employs both the logical tests and the Babylonian root extraction, we have 100% accuracy, and test completion in only 14 seconds. The first 100 Million integers takes roughly 2 minutes 45 seconds to test.
EDIT: I have been able to bring down the time further. I can now test the integers 0 to 100 Million in 1 minute 40 seconds. A lot of time is wasted checking the data type and the positivity. Eliminate the very first two checks and I cut the experiment down by a minute. One must assume the user is smart enough to know that negatives and floats are not perfect squares.

import math
def is_square(n):
sqrt = math.sqrt(n)
return (sqrt - int(sqrt)) == 0
A perfect square is a number that can be expressed as the product of two equal integers. math.sqrt(number) return a float. int(math.sqrt(number)) casts the outcome to int.
If the square root is an integer, like 3, for example, then math.sqrt(number) - int(math.sqrt(number)) will be 0, and the if statement will be False. If the square root was a real number like 3.2, then it will be True and print "it's not a perfect square".
It fails for a large non-square such as 152415789666209426002111556165263283035677490.

My answer is:
def is_square(x):
return x**.5 % 1 == 0
It basically does a square root, then modulo by 1 to strip the integer part and if the result is 0 return True otherwise return False. In this case x can be any large number, just not as large as the max float number that python can handle: 1.7976931348623157e+308
It is incorrect for a large non-square such as 152415789666209426002111556165263283035677490.

This can be solved using the decimal module to get arbitrary precision square roots and easy checks for "exactness":
import math
from decimal import localcontext, Context, Inexact
def is_perfect_square(x):
# If you want to allow negative squares, then set x = abs(x) instead
if x < 0:
return False
# Create localized, default context so flags and traps unset
with localcontext(Context()) as ctx:
# Set a precision sufficient to represent x exactly; `x or 1` avoids
# math domain error for log10 when x is 0
ctx.prec = math.ceil(math.log10(x or 1)) + 1 # Wrap ceil call in int() on Py2
# Compute integer square root; don't even store result, just setting flags
ctx.sqrt(x).to_integral_exact()
# If previous line couldn't represent square root as exact int, sets Inexact flag
return not ctx.flags[Inexact]
For demonstration with truly huge values:
# I just kept mashing the numpad for awhile :-)
>>> base = 100009991439393999999393939398348438492389402490289028439083249803434098349083490340934903498034098390834980349083490384903843908309390282930823940230932490340983098349032098324908324098339779438974879480379380439748093874970843479280329708324970832497804329783429874329873429870234987234978034297804329782349783249873249870234987034298703249780349783497832497823497823497803429780324
>>> sqr = base ** 2
>>> sqr ** 0.5 # Too large to use floating point math
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
OverflowError: int too large to convert to float
>>> is_perfect_power(sqr)
True
>>> is_perfect_power(sqr-1)
False
>>> is_perfect_power(sqr+1)
False
If you increase the size of the value being tested, this eventually gets rather slow (takes close to a second for a 200,000 bit square), but for more moderate numbers (say, 20,000 bits), it's still faster than a human would notice for individual values (~33 ms on my machine). But since speed wasn't your primary concern, this is a good way to do it with Python's standard libraries.
Of course, it would be much faster to use gmpy2 and just test gmpy2.mpz(x).is_square(), but if third party packages aren't your thing, the above works quite well.

I just posted a slight variation on some of the examples above on another thread (Finding perfect squares) and thought I'd include a slight variation of what I posted there here (using nsqrt as a temporary variable), in case it's of interest / use:
import math
def is_square(n):
if not (isinstance(n, int) and (n >= 0)):
return False
else:
nsqrt = math.sqrt(n)
return nsqrt == math.trunc(nsqrt)
It is incorrect for a large non-square such as 152415789666209426002111556165263283035677490.

A variant of #Alex Martelli's solution without set
When x in seen is True:
In most cases, it is the last one added, e.g. 1022 produces the x's sequence 511, 256, 129, 68, 41, 32, 31, 31;
In some cases (i.e., for the predecessors of perfect squares), it is the second-to-last one added, e.g. 1023 produces 511, 256, 129, 68, 41, 32, 31, 32.
Hence, it suffices to stop as soon as the current x is greater than or equal to the previous one:
def is_square(n):
assert n > 1
previous = n
x = n // 2
while x * x != n:
x = (x + (n // x)) // 2
if x >= previous:
return False
previous = x
return True
x = 12345678987654321234567 ** 2
assert not is_square(x-1)
assert is_square(x)
assert not is_square(x+1)
Equivalence with the original algorithm tested for 1 < n < 10**7. On the same interval, this slightly simpler variant is about 1.4 times faster.

This is my method:
def is_square(n) -> bool:
return int(n**0.5)**2 == int(n)
Take square root of number. Convert to integer. Take the square. If the numbers are equal, then it is a perfect square otherwise not.
It is incorrect for a large square such as 152415789666209426002111556165263283035677489.

If the modulus (remainder) leftover from dividing by the square root is 0, then it is a perfect square.
def is_square(num: int) -> bool:
return num % math.sqrt(num) == 0
I checked this against a list of perfect squares going up to 1000.

It is possible to improve the Babylonian method by observing that the successive terms form a decreasing sequence if one starts above the square root of n.
def is_square(n):
assert n > 1
a = n
b = (a + n // a) // 2
while b < a:
a = b
b = (a + n // a) // 2
return a * a == n

If it's a perfect square, its square root will be an integer, the fractional part will be 0, we can use modulus operator to check fractional part, and check if it's 0, it does fail for some numbers, so, for safety, we will also check if it's square of the square root even if the fractional part is 0.
import math
def isSquare(n):
root = math.sqrt(n)
if root % 1 == 0:
if int(root) * int(root) == n:
return True
return False
isSquare(4761)

You could binary-search for the rounded square root. Square the result to see if it matches the original value.
You're probably better off with FogleBirds answer - though beware, as floating point arithmetic is approximate, which can throw this approach off. You could in principle get a false positive from a large integer which is one more than a perfect square, for instance, due to lost precision.

A simple way to do it (faster than the second one) :
def is_square(n):
return str(n**(1/2)).split(".")[1] == '0'
Another way:
def is_square(n):
if n == 0:
return True
else:
if n % 2 == 0 :
for i in range(2,n,2):
if i*i == n:
return True
else :
for i in range(1,n,2):
if i*i == n:
return True
return False

This response doesn't pertain to your stated question, but to an implicit question I see in the code you posted, ie, "how to check if something is an integer?"
The first answer you'll generally get to that question is "Don't!" And it's true that in Python, typechecking is usually not the right thing to do.
For those rare exceptions, though, instead of looking for a decimal point in the string representation of the number, the thing to do is use the isinstance function:
>>> isinstance(5,int)
True
>>> isinstance(5.0,int)
False
Of course this applies to the variable rather than a value. If I wanted to determine whether the value was an integer, I'd do this:
>>> x=5.0
>>> round(x) == x
True
But as everyone else has covered in detail, there are floating-point issues to be considered in most non-toy examples of this kind of thing.

If you want to loop over a range and do something for every number that is NOT a perfect square, you could do something like this:
def non_squares(upper):
next_square = 0
diff = 1
for i in range(0, upper):
if i == next_square:
next_square += diff
diff += 2
continue
yield i
If you want to do something for every number that IS a perfect square, the generator is even easier:
(n * n for n in range(upper))

I think that this works and is very simple:
import math
def is_square(num):
sqrt = math.sqrt(num)
return sqrt == int(sqrt)
It is incorrect for a large non-square such as 152415789666209426002111556165263283035677490.

a=int(input('enter any number'))
flag=0
for i in range(1,a):
if a==i*i:
print(a,'is perfect square number')
flag=1
break
if flag==1:
pass
else:
print(a,'is not perfect square number')

In kotlin :
It's quite easy and it passed all test cases as well.
really thanks to >> https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-quickest-way-to-determine-if-a-number-is-a-perfect-square
fun isPerfectSquare(num: Int): Boolean {
var result = false
var sum=0L
var oddNumber=1L
while(sum<num){
sum = sum + oddNumber
oddNumber = oddNumber+2
}
result = sum == num.toLong()
return result
}

def isPerfectSquare(self, num: int) -> bool:
left, right = 0, num
while left <= right:
mid = (left + right) // 2
if mid**2 < num:
left = mid + 1
elif mid**2 > num:
right = mid - 1
else:
return True
return False

Decide how long the number will be.
take a delta 0.000000000000.......000001
see if the (sqrt(x))^2 - x is greater / equal /smaller than delta and decide based on the delta error.

import math
def is_square(n):
sqrt = math.sqrt(n)
return sqrt == int(sqrt)
It fails for a large non-square such as 152415789666209426002111556165263283035677490.

The idea is to run a loop from i = 1 to floor(sqrt(n)) then check if squaring it makes n.
bool isPerfectSquare(int n)
{
for (int i = 1; i * i <= n; i++) {
// If (i * i = n)
if ((n % i == 0) && (n / i == i)) {
return true;
}
}
return false;
}

How can I write this code so that I do not have to round the logarithm?

I was doing a programming challenge question where you need to found out if a given number (n) is equal to 3 raised to some exponent(x)
9 is True since 3^x -> 3^3 = 9
10 is False since no x for 3^x is equal to 10
my problem occurred when 243 was entered into my code, which returned a result of 4.999 repeating.
my solution was to simply add a round function, in which I arbitrarily decided on 5 decimal places, this solved the problem.
now another problem occurred when the input was 531440, this returns an x value of 11.999998287222695 which, according to the challenge, was false, but with my code returned a true since I rounded to the fifth decimal place. I then changed my round to 10 decimal places and this fixed the code.
I was wondering if there was a way to implement my solution without having to round, as I'm sure if I plugged in enough numbers eventually another one would need to round past >10 decimal places and cause my code to fail. Please see the code below.
import math as math
def isPowerOfThree(n):
print(math.log(n,3)) #this line prints the unrounded log result
print(round((math.log(n,3)),10)) #this line prints the rounded result
return n>0 and round((math.log(n,3)),10).is_integer()
n = 243
print(isPowerOfThree(n))

The 'trick' allowing to avoid problems with chosen precision is to round to an integer and then check if this exponent gives the required result. The code below implements this approach:
import math
def isPowerOfThree(N):
if 3**round(math.log(N,3)) == N:
return True
return False
N = 531440 # 243
print(isPowerOfThree(N)) # gives False
Another approach will be to check all powers of 3 against the target number:
def isPowerOfThree(N):
x = 1
while True:
n = 3**x
if n == N:
return True
elif n > N:
return False
x += 1
And here an approach detecting directly without the need to run multiple loop runs if a number is not a power of 3:
def isPowerOfThree(N):
while True:
N , r = divmod(N, 3)
if r != 0:
return False
if N == 1:
return True
P.S. the two last approaches provide code to what Karl Knechtel mentioned in his comment to the question.

Wrong answer in SPOJ `CUBERT` [closed]

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Edit the question to include desired behavior, a specific problem or error, and the shortest code necessary to reproduce the problem. This will help others answer the question.
Closed 7 years ago.
Improve this question
I am getting a Wrong Answer for my solution to this problem on SPOJ.
The problem asks to calculate the cube root of an integer(which can be upto 150 digits long), and output the answer truncated upto 10 decimal places.
It also asks to calculate the sum of all the digits in the answer modulo 10 as a 'checksum' value.
Here is the exact problem statement:
Your task is to calculate the cube root of a given positive integer.
We can not remember why exactly we need this, but it has something in
common with a princess, a young peasant, kissing and half of a kingdom
(a huge one, we can assure you).
Write a program to solve this crucial task.
Input
The input starts with a line containing a single integer t <= 20, the
number of test cases. t test cases follow.
The next lines consist of large positive integers of up to 150 decimal
digits. Each number is on its own separate line of the input file. The
input file may contain empty lines. Numbers can be preceded or
followed by whitespaces but no line exceeds 255 characters.
Output
For each number in the input file your program should output a line
consisting of two values separated by single space. The second value
is the cube root of the given number, truncated (not rounded!) after
the 10th decimal place. First value is a checksum of all printed
digits of the cube root, calculated as the sum of the printed digits
modulo 10.
Example
Input:
5
1
8
1000
2 33076161
Output:
1 1.0000000000
2 2.0000000000
1 10.0000000000
0 1.2599210498
6 321.0000000000
Here is my solution:
from math import pow
def foo(num):
num_cube_root = pow(num, 1.0 / 3)
# First round upto 11 decimal places
num_cube_root = "%.11f" % (num_cube_root)
# Then remove the last decimal digit
# to achieve a truncation of 10 decimal places
num_cube_root = str(num_cube_root)[0:-1]
num_cube_root_sum = 0
for digit in num_cube_root:
if digit != '.':
num_cube_root_sum += int(digit)
num_cube_root_sum %= 10
return (num_cube_root_sum, num_cube_root)
def main():
# Number of test cases
t = int(input())
while t:
t -= 1
num = input().strip()
# If line empty, ignore
if not num:
t += 1
continue
num = int(num)
ans = foo(num)
print(str(ans[0]) + " " + ans[1])
if __name__ == '__main__':
main()
It is working perfectly for the sample cases: Live demo.
Can anyone tell what is the problem with this solution?

Your solution has two problems, both related to the use of floating-point arithmetic. The first issue is that Python floats only carry roughly 16 significant decimal digits of precision, so as soon as your answer requires more than 16 significant digits or so (so more than 6 digits before the point, and 10 digits after), you've very little hope of getting the correct trailing digits. The second issue is more subtle, and affects even small values of n. That's that your approach of rounding to 11 decimal digits and then dropping the last digit suffers from potential errors due to double rounding. For an example, take n = 33. The cube root of n, to 20 decimal places or so, is:
3.20753432999582648755...
When that's rounded to 11 places after the point, you end up with
3.20753433000
and now dropping the last digit gives 3.2075343300, which isn't what you wanted. The problem is that that round to 11 decimal places can end up affecting digits to the left of the 11th place digit.
So what can you do to fix this? Well, you can avoid floating-point altogether and reduce this to a pure integer problem. We need the cube root of some integer n to 10 decimal places (rounding the last place down). That's equivalent to computing the cube root of 10**30 * n to the nearest integer, again rounding down, then dividing the result by 10**10. So the essential task here is to compute the floor of the cube root of any given integer n. I was unable to find any existing Stack Overflow answers about computing integer cube roots (still less in Python), so I thought it worth showing how to do so in detail.
Computing cube roots of integers turns out to be quite easy (with the help of a tiny bit of mathematics). There are various possible approaches, but one approach that's both efficient and easy to implement is to use a pure-integer version of the Newton-Raphson method. Over the real numbers, Newton's method for solving the equation x**3 = n takes an approximation x to the cube root of n, and iterates to return an improved approximation. The required iteration is:
x_next = (2*x + n/x**2)/3
In the real case, you'd repeat the iteration until you reached some desired tolerance. It turns out that over the integers, essentially the same iteration works, and with the right exit condition it will give us exactly the correct answer (no tolerance required). The iteration in the integer case is:
a_next = (2*a + n//a**2)//3
(Note the uses of the floor division operator // in place of the usual true division operator / above.) Mathematically, a_next is exactly the floor of (2*a + n/a**2)/3.
Here's some code based on this iteration:
def icbrt_v1(n, initial_guess=None):
"""
Given a positive integer n, find the floor of the cube root of n.
Args:
n : positive integer
initial_guess : positive integer, optional. If given, this is an
initial guess for the floor of the cube root. It must be greater
than or equal to floor(cube_root(n)).
Returns:
The floor of the cube root of n, as an integer.
"""
a = initial_guess if initial_guess is not None else n
while True:
d = n//a**2
if a <= d:
return a
a = (2*a + d)//3
And some example uses:
>>> icbrt_v1(100)
4
>>> icbrt_v1(1000000000)
1000
>>> large_int = 31415926535897932384626433
>>> icbrt_v1(large_int**3)
31415926535897932384626433
>>> icbrt_v1(large_int**3-1)
31415926535897932384626432
There are a couple of annoyances and inefficiencies in icbrt_v1 that we'll fix shortly. But first, a brief explanation of why the above code works. Note that we start with an initial guess that's assumed to be greater than or equal to the floor of the cube root. We'll show that this property is a loop invariant: every time we reach the top of the while loop, a is at least floor(cbrt(n)). Furthermore, each iteration produces a value of a strictly smaller than the old one, so our iteration is guaranteed to eventually converge to floor(cbrt(n)). To prove these facts, note that as we enter the while loop, there are two possibilities:
Case 1. a is strictly greater than the cube root of n. Then a > n//a**2, and the code proceeds to the next iteration. Write a_next = (2*a + n//a**2)//3, then we have:
a_next >= floor(cbrt(n)). This follows from the fact that (2*a + n/a**2)/3 is at least the cube root of n, which in turn follows from the AM-GM inequality applied to a, a and n/a**2: the geometric mean of these three quantities is exactly the cube root of n, so the arithmetic mean must be at least the cube root of n. So our loop invariant is preserved for the next iteration.
a_next < a: since we're assuming that a is larger than the cube root, n/a**2 < a, and it follows that (2a + n/a**2) / 3 is smaller than a, and hence that floor((2a + n/a**2) / 3) < a. This guarantees that we make progress towards the solution at each iteration.
Case 2. a is less than or equal to the cube root of n. Then a <= floor(cbrt(n)), but from the loop invariant established above we also know that a >= floor(cbrt(n)). So we're done: a is the value we're after. And the while loop exits at this point, since a <= n // a**2.
There are a couple of issues with the code above. First, starting with an initial guess of n is inefficient: the code will spend its first few iterations (roughly) dividing the current value of a by 3 each time until it gets into the neighborhood of the solution. A better choice for the initial guess (and one that's easily computable in Python) is to use the first power of two that exceeds the cube root of n.
initial_guess = 1 << -(-n.bit_length() // 3)
Even better, if n is small enough to avoid overflow, is to use floating-point arithmetic to provide the initial guess, with something like:
initial_guess = int(round(n ** (1/3.)))
But this brings us to our second issue: the correctness of our algorithm requires that the initial guess is no smaller than the actual integer cube root, and as n gets large we can't guarantee that for the float-based initial_guess above (though for small enough n, we can). Luckily, there's a very simple fix: for any positive integer a, if we perform a single iteration we always end up with a value that's at least floor(cbrt(a)) (using the same AM-GM argument that we used above). So all we have to do is perform at least one iteration before we start testing for convergence.
With that in mind, here's a more efficient version of the above code:
def icbrt(n):
"""
Given a positive integer n, find the floor of the cube root of n.
Args:
n : positive integer
Returns:
The floor of the cube root of n, as an integer.
"""
if n.bit_length() < 1024: # float(n) safe from overflow
a = int(round(n**(1/3.)))
a = (2*a + n//a**2)//3 # Ensure a >= floor(cbrt(n)).
else:
a = 1 << -(-n.bit_length()//3)
while True:
d = n//a**2
if a <= d:
return a
a = (2*a + d)//3
And with icbrt in hand, it's easy to put everything together to compute cube roots to ten decimal places. Here, for simplicity, I output the result as a string, but you could just as easily construct a Decimal instance.
def cbrt_to_ten_places(n):
"""
Compute the cube root of `n`, truncated to ten decimal places.
Returns the answer as a string.
"""
a = icbrt(n * 10**30)
q, r = divmod(a, 10**10)
return "{}.{:010d}".format(q, r)
Example outputs:
>>> cbrt_to_ten_places(2)
'1.2599210498'
>>> cbrt_to_ten_places(8)
'2.0000000000'
>>> cbrt_to_ten_places(31415926535897932384626433)
'315536756.9301821867'
>>> cbrt_to_ten_places(31415926535897932384626433**3)
'31415926535897932384626433.0000000000'

You may try to use the decimal module with a sufficiently large precision value.
EDIT: Thanks to #DSM, I realised that decimal module will not produce very exact cube roots. I suggest that you check whether all digits are 9s and round it to a integer if that is a case.
Also, I now perform the 1/3 division with Decimals as well, because passing the result of 1/3 to Decimal constructor leads to reduced precision.
import decimal
def cbrt(n):
nd = decimal.Decimal(n)
with decimal.localcontext() as ctx:
ctx.prec = 50
i = nd ** (decimal.Decimal(1) / decimal.Decimal(3))
return i
ret = str(cbrt(1233412412430519230351035712112421123121111))
print(ret)
left, right = ret.split('.')
print(left + '.' + ''.join(right[:10]))
Output:
107243119477324.80328931501744819161741924145124146
107243119477324.8032893150
Output of cbrt(10) is:
9.9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999998

Finding if n! + 1 is a perfect square

I'm trying to write a program to look for a number, n, between 0 and 100 such that n! + 1 is a perfect square. I'm trying to do this because I know there are only three so it was meant as a test of my Python ability.
Refer to Brocard's problem.

math.sqrt always returns a float, even if that float happens to be, say, 4.0. As the docs say, "Except when explicitly noted otherwise, all return values are floats."
So, your test for type(math.sqrt(x)) == int will never be true.
You could try to work around that by checking whether the float represents an integer, like this:
sx = math.sqrt(x)
if round(sx) == sx:
There's even a built-in method that does this as well as possible:
if sx.is_integer():
But keep in mind that float values are not a perfect representation of real numbers, and there are always rounding issues. For example, for a too-large number, the sqrt might round to an integer, even though it really wasn't a perfect square. For example, if math.sqrt(10000000000**2 + 1).is_integer() is True, even though obviously the number is not a perfect square.
I could tell you whether this is safe within your range of values, but can you convince yourself? If not, you shouldn't just assume that it is.
So, is there a way we can check that isn't affected by float roading issues? Sure, we can use integer arithmetic to check:
sx = int(round(math.sqrt(x)))
if sx*sx == x:
But, as Stefan Pochmann points out, even if this check is safe, does that mean the whole algorithm is? No; sqrt itself could have already been rounded to the point where you've lost integer precision.
So, you need an exact sqrt. You could do this by using decimal.Decimal with a huge configured precision. This will take a bit of work, and a lot of memory, but it's doable. Like this:
decimal.getcontext().prec = ENOUGH_DIGITS
sx = decimal.Decimal(x).sqrt()
But how many digits is ENOUGH_DIGITS? Well, how many digits do you need to represent 100!+1 exactly?
So:
decimal.getcontext().prec = 156
while n <= 100:
x = math.factorial(n) + 1
sx = decimal.Decimal(x).sqrt()
if int(sx) ** 2 == x:
print(sx)
n = n + 1
If you think about it, there's a way to reduce the needed precision to 79 digits, but I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader.
The way you're presumably supposed to solve this is by using purely integer math. For example, you can find out whether an integer is a square in logarithmic time just by using Newton's method until your approximation error is small enough to just check the two bordering integers.

For very large numbers it's better to avoid using floating point square roots altogether because you will run into too many precision issues and you can't even guarantee that you will be within 1 integer value of the correct answer. Fortunately Python natively supports integers of arbitrary size, so you can write an integer square root checking function, like this:
def isSquare(x):
if x == 1:
return True
low = 0
high = x // 2
root = high
while root * root != x:
root = (low + high) // 2
if low + 1 >= high:
return False
if root * root > x:
high = root
else:
low = root
return True
Then you can run through the integers from 0 to 100 like this:
n = 0
while n <= 100:
x = math.factorial(n) + 1
if isSquare(x):
print n
n = n + 1

Here's another version working only with integers, computing the square root by adding decreasing powers of 2, for example intsqrt(24680) will be computed as 128+16+8+4+1.
def intsqrt(n):
pow2 = 1
while pow2 < n:
pow2 *= 2
sqrt = 0
while pow2:
if (sqrt + pow2) ** 2 <= n:
sqrt += pow2
pow2 //= 2
return sqrt
factorial = 1
for n in range(1, 101):
factorial *= n
if intsqrt(factorial + 1) ** 2 == factorial + 1:
print(n)

The number math.sqrt returns is never an int, even if it's an integer.How to check if a float value is a whole number

How to check if a float value is a whole number

I am trying to find the largest cube root that is a whole number, that is less than 12,000.
processing = True
n = 12000
while processing:
n -= 1
if n ** (1/3) == #checks to see if this has decimals or not
I am not sure how to check if it is a whole number or not though! I could convert it to a string then use indexing to check the end values and see whether they are zero or not, that seems rather cumbersome though. Is there a simpler way?

To check if a float value is a whole number, use the float.is_integer() method:
>>> (1.0).is_integer()
True
>>> (1.555).is_integer()
False
The method was added to the float type in Python 2.6.
Take into account that in Python 2, 1/3 is 0 (floor division for integer operands!), and that floating point arithmetic can be imprecise (a float is an approximation using binary fractions, not a precise real number). But adjusting your loop a little this gives:
>>> for n in range(12000, -1, -1):
... if (n ** (1.0/3)).is_integer():
... print n
...
27
8
1
0
which means that anything over 3 cubed, (including 10648) was missed out due to the aforementioned imprecision:
>>> (4**3) ** (1.0/3)
3.9999999999999996
>>> 10648 ** (1.0/3)
21.999999999999996
You'd have to check for numbers close to the whole number instead, or not use float() to find your number. Like rounding down the cube root of 12000:
>>> int(12000 ** (1.0/3))
22
>>> 22 ** 3
10648
If you are using Python 3.5 or newer, you can use the math.isclose() function to see if a floating point value is within a configurable margin:
>>> from math import isclose
>>> isclose((4**3) ** (1.0/3), 4)
True
>>> isclose(10648 ** (1.0/3), 22)
True
For older versions, the naive implementation of that function (skipping error checking and ignoring infinity and NaN) as mentioned in PEP485:
def isclose(a, b, rel_tol=1e-9, abs_tol=0.0):
return abs(a - b) <= max(rel_tol * max(abs(a), abs(b)), abs_tol)

We can use the modulo (%) operator. This tells us how many remainders we have when we divide x by y - expresses as x % y. Every whole number must divide by 1, so if there is a remainder, it must not be a whole number.
This function will return a boolean, True or False, depending on whether n is a whole number.
def is_whole(n):
return n % 1 == 0

You could use this:
if k == int(k):
print(str(k) + " is a whole number!")

You don't need to loop or to check anything. Just take a cube root of 12,000 and round it down:
r = int(12000**(1/3.0))
print r*r*r # 10648

You can use a modulo operation for that.
if (n ** (1.0/3)) % 1 != 0:
print("We have a decimal number here!")

How about
if x%1==0:
print "is integer"

Wouldn't it be easier to test the cube roots? Start with 20 (20**3 = 8000) and go up to 30 (30**3 = 27000). Then you have to test fewer than 10 integers.
for i in range(20, 30):
print("Trying {0}".format(i))
if i ** 3 > 12000:
print("Maximum integral cube root less than 12000: {0}".format(i - 1))
break

The above answers work for many cases but they miss some. Consider the following:
fl = sum([0.1]*10) # this is 0.9999999999999999, but we want to say it IS an int
Using this as a benchmark, some of the other suggestions don't get the behavior we might want:
fl.is_integer() # False
fl % 1 == 0 # False
Instead try:
def isclose(a, b, rel_tol=1e-09, abs_tol=0.0):
return abs(a-b) <= max(rel_tol * max(abs(a), abs(b)), abs_tol)
def is_integer(fl):
return isclose(fl, round(fl))
now we get:
is_integer(fl) # True
isclose comes with Python 3.5+, and for other Python's you can use this mostly equivalent definition (as mentioned in the corresponding PEP)

Just a side info, is_integer is doing internally:
import math
isInteger = (math.floor(x) == x)
Not exactly in python, but the cpython implementation is implemented as mentioned above.

All the answers are good but a sure fire method would be
def whole (n):
return (n*10)%10==0
The function returns True if it's a whole number else False....I know I'm a bit late but here's one of the interesting methods which I made...
Edit: as stated by the comment below, a cheaper equivalent test would be:
def whole(n):
return n%1==0

You can use something like:
num = 1.9899
bool(int(num)-num)
#returns True
if it is True, It means it holds some value, hence not a whole number. Else
num = 1.0
bool(int(num)-num)
# returns False

>>> def is_near_integer(n, precision=8, get_integer=False):
... if get_integer:
... return int(round(n, precision))
... else:
... return round(n) == round(n, precision)
...
>>> print(is_near_integer(10648 ** (1.0/3)))
True
>>> print(is_near_integer(10648 ** (1.0/3), get_integer=True))
22
>>> for i in [4.9, 5.1, 4.99, 5.01, 4.999, 5.001, 4.9999, 5.0001, 4.99999, 5.000
01, 4.999999, 5.000001]:
... print(i, is_near_integer(i, 4))
...
4.9 False
5.1 False
4.99 False
5.01 False
4.999 False
5.001 False
4.9999 False
5.0001 False
4.99999 True
5.00001 True
4.999999 True
5.000001 True
>>>

This problem has been solved, but I would like to propose an additional mathematical-based solution for funcies.
The benefit of this approach is that it calculates the whole number part of your number, which may be beneficial depending on your general task.
Algorithm:
Decompose whole number part of your number its a sum of its decimals (e.g., 327=3*100+2*10+7*1)
take difference between calculated whole number and number itself
decide whether difference is close enough to be considered an integer.
from math import ceil, log, isclose
def is_whole(x: float) -> bool:
n_digits = ceil(log(x,10)) # number of digits of decimals at or above ones
digits = [(n//(10**i))%10 for i in range(n_digits)] # parse digits of `x` at or above ones decimal
whole = 0 # will equal the whole number part of `x`
for i in range(n_digits):
decimal = 10**i
digit = digits[i]
whole += digit*decimal
diff = whole - x
return isclose(diff, 0.0)
NOTE: the idea of parsing digits of a number was realized from here

Try using:
int(val) == val
It will give lot more precision than any other methods.

You can use the round function to compute the value.
Yes in python as many have pointed when we compute the value of a cube root, it will give you an output with a little bit of error. To check if the value is a whole number you can use the following function:
def cube_integer(n):
if round(n**(1.0/3.0))**3 == n:
return True
return False
But remember that int(n) is equivalent to math.floor and because of this if you find the int(41063625**(1.0/3.0)) you will get 344 instead of 345.
So please be careful when using int withe cube roots.