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Factorial

This version was saved 15 years, 11 months ago View current version     Page history
Saved by Kenneth Finnegan
on May 5, 2008 at 3:48:22 pm
 

Calculating factorials is one of the most classic examples used in teaching recursion.  The code to do so is quite simple:

int factorial(int i) {

     if(i)

          return i * factorial(i-1);

     return 1;

}

 

The realistic problem with this is that factorials get really big, really fast.  Only 13! is so large that it overflows a 32 bit int.  Unless you're dealing with 64 bit numbers, it makes more sense to use a lookup table.  The work just isn't worth it.

 

Code:

int factorial(int i) {

     if (i<0 || i>12) {

          fprintf(stderr, "Factorial input out of range\n");

          exit(0); // You could also return an error code like -1

     }

     static const int factorials[] = {1, 1, 2, 6, 24, 120, 720, 5040, 40320, 362880, 3628800, 39916800, 479001600};

     return factorials[i];

 


Extensions:

If you need larger factorials, use a 64 bit number (long long or int64_t).  You can still use a lookup table for improved performance.

 


Sources:

I can't remember where I read this trick.

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