Code Golf: Collatz Conjecture

Question

Inspired by http://xkcd.com/710/ here is a code golf for it.

The Challenge

Given a positive integer greater than 0, print out the hailstone sequence for that number.

The Hailstone Sequence

See Wikipedia for more detail..

• If the number is even, divide it by two.
• If the number is odd, triple it and add one.

Repeat this with the number produced until it reaches 1. (if it continues after 1, it will go in an infinite loop of 1 -> 4 -> 2 -> 1...)

Sometimes code is the best way to explain, so here is some from Wikipedia

function collatz(n)
  show n
  if n > 1
    if n is odd
      call collatz(3n + 1)
    else
      call collatz(n / 2)

This code works, but I am adding on an extra challenge. The program must not be vulnerable to stack overflows. So it must either use iteration or tail recursion.

Also, bonus points for if it can calculate big numbers and the language does not already have it implemented. (or if you reimplement big number support using fixed-length integers)

Test case

Number: 21
Results: 21 -> 64 -> 32 -> 16 -> 8 -> 4 -> 2 -> 1

Number: 3
Results: 3 -> 10 -> 5 -> 16 -> 8 -> 4 -> 2 -> 1

Also, the code golf must include full user input and output.

Answer 1

C# : 659 chars with BigInteger support

using System.Linq;using C=System.Console;class Program{static void Main(){var v=C.ReadLine();C.Write(v);while(v!="1"){C.Write("->");if(v[v.Length-1]%2==0){v=v.Aggregate(new{s="",o=0},(r,c)=>new{s=r.s+(char)((c-48)/2+r.o+48),o=(c%2)*5}).s.TrimStart('0');}else{var q=v.Reverse().Aggregate(new{s="",o=0},(r, c)=>new{s=(char)((c-48)*3+r.o+(c*3+r.o>153?c*3+r.o>163?28:38:48))+r.s,o=c*3+r.o>153?c*3+r.o>163?2:1:0});var t=(q.o+q.s).TrimStart('0').Reverse();var x=t.First();q=t.Skip(1).Aggregate(new{s=x>56?(x-57).ToString():(x-47).ToString(),o=x>56?1:0},(r,c)=>new{s=(char)(c-48+r.o+(c+r.o>57?38:48))+r.s,o=c+r.o>57?1:0});v=(q.o+q.s).TrimStart('0');}C.Write(v);}}}

Ungolfed

using System.Linq;
using C = System.Console;
class Program
{
    static void Main()
    {
        var v = C.ReadLine();
        C.Write(v);
        while (v != "1")
        {
            C.Write("->");
            if (v[v.Length - 1] % 2 == 0)
            {
                v = v
                    .Aggregate(
                        new { s = "", o = 0 }, 
                        (r, c) => new { s = r.s + (char)((c - 48) / 2 + r.o + 48), o = (c % 2) * 5 })
                    .s.TrimStart('0');
            }
            else
            {
                var q = v
                    .Reverse()
                    .Aggregate(
                        new { s = "", o = 0 }, 
                        (r, c) => new { s = (char)((c - 48) * 3 + r.o + (c * 3 + r.o > 153 ? c * 3 + r.o > 163 ? 28 : 38 : 48)) + r.s, o = c * 3 + r.o > 153 ? c * 3 + r.o > 163 ? 2 : 1 : 0 });
                var t = (q.o + q.s)
                    .TrimStart('0')
                    .Reverse();
                var x = t.First();
                q = t
                    .Skip(1)
                    .Aggregate(
                        new { s = x > 56 ? (x - 57).ToString() : (x - 47).ToString(), o = x > 56 ? 1 : 0 }, 
                        (r, c) => new { s = (char)(c - 48 + r.o + (c + r.o > 57 ? 38 : 48)) + r.s, o = c + r.o > 57 ? 1 : 0 });
                v = (q.o + q.s)
                    .TrimStart('0');
            }
            C.Write(v);
        }
    }
}

Answer 2

MS Excel, 35 chars

=IF(A1/2=ROUND(A1/2,0),A1/2,A1*3+1)

Taken straight from Wikipedia:

In cell A1, place the starting number.
In cell A2 enter this formula =IF(A1/2=ROUND(A1/2,0),A1/2,A1*3+1) 
Drag and copy the formula down until 4, 2, 1

It only took copy/pasting the formula 111 times to get the result for a starting number of 1000. ;)

Answer 3

Scheme: 72

(define(c n)(if(= n 1)`(1)(cons n(if(odd? n)(c(+(* n 3)1))(c(/ n 2))))))

This uses recursion, but the calls are tail-recursive so I think they'll be optimized to iteration. In some quick testing, I haven't been able to find a number for which the stack overflows anyway. Just for example:

(c 9876543219999999999000011234567898888777766665555444433332222 7777777777777777777777777777777798797657657651234143375987342987 5398709812374982529830983743297432985230985739287023987532098579 058095873098753098370938753987)

...runs just fine. [that's all one number -- I've just broken it to fit on screen.]

Answer 4

Scala + Scalaz

import scalaz._
import Scalaz._
val collatz = 
   (_:Int).iterate[Stream](a=>Seq(a/2,3*a+1)(a%2)).takeWhile(1<) // This line: 61 chars

And in action:

scala> collatz(7).toList
res15: List[Int] = List(7, 22, 11, 34, 17, 52, 26, 13, 40, 20, 10, 5, 16, 8, 4, 2)

Scala 2.8

val collatz = 
   Stream.iterate(_:Int)(a=>Seq(a/2,3*a+1)(a%2)).takeWhile(1<) :+ 1

This also includes the trailing 1.

scala> collatz(7)
res12: scala.collection.immutable.Stream[Int] = Stream(7, 22, 11, 34, 17, 52, 26, 13, 40, 20, 10, 5, 16, 8, 4, 2, 1)

With the following implicit

implicit def intToEven(i:Int) = new {
  def ~(even: Int=>Int, odd: Int=>Int) = { 
    if (i%2==0) { even(i) } else { odd(i) }
  }
}

this can be shortened to

val collatz = Stream.iterate(_:Int)(_~(_/2,3*_+1)).takeWhile(1<) :+ 1

Edit - 58 characters (including input and output, but not including initial number)

var n=readInt;while(n>1){n=Seq(n/2,n*3+1)(n%2);println(n)}

Could be reduced by 2 if you don't need newlines...

Answer 5

Golfscript : 20 chars

  ~{(}{3*).1&5*)/}/1+`
# 
# Usage: echo 21 | ruby golfscript.rb collatz.gs

This is equivalent to

stack<int> s;
s.push(21);
while (s.top() - 1) {
  int x = s.top();
  int numerator = x*3+1;
  int denominator = (numerator&1) * 5 + 1;
  s.push(numerator/denominator);
}
s.push(1);
return s;

Answer 6

Perl

I decided to be a little anticompetitive, and show how you would normally code such problem in Perl.
_{There is also a 46 (total) char code-golf entry at the end.}

These first three examples all start out with this header.

#! /usr/bin/env perl
use Modern::Perl;
# which is the same as these three lines:
# use 5.10.0;
# use strict;
# use warnings;

while( <> ){
  chomp;
  last unless $_;
  Collatz( $_ );
}

• Simple recursive version

  use Sub::Call::Recur;
  sub Collatz{
    my( $n ) = @_;
    $n += 0; # ensure that it is numeric
    die 'invalid value' unless $n > 0;
    die 'Integer values only' unless $n == int $n;
    say $n;
    given( $n ){
      when( 1 ){}
      when( $_ % 2 != 0 ){ # odd
        recur( 3 * $n + 1 );
      }
      default{ # even
        recur( $n / 2 );
      }
    }
  }
  

• Simple iterative version

  sub Collatz{
    my( $n ) = @_;
    $n += 0; # ensure that it is numeric
    die 'invalid value' unless $n > 0;
    die 'Integer values only' unless $n == int $n;
    say $n;
    while( $n > 1 ){
      if( $n % 2 ){ # odd
        $n = 3 * $n + 1;
      } else { #even
        $n = $n / 2;
      }
      say $n;
    }
  }
  

• Optimized iterative version

  sub Collatz{
    my( $n ) = @_;
    $n += 0; # ensure that it is numeric
    die 'invalid value' unless $n > 0;
    die 'Integer values only' unless $n == int $n;
    #
    state @next;
    $next[1] //= 0; # sets $next[1] to 0 if it is undefined
    #
    # fill out @next until we get to a value we've already worked on
    until( defined $next[$n] ){
      say $n;
      #
      if( $n % 2 ){ # odd
        $next[$n] = 3 * $n + 1;
      } else { # even
        $next[$n] = $n / 2;
      }
      #
      $n = $next[$n];
    }
    say $n;
    # finish running until we get to 1
    say $n while $n = $next[$n];
  }
  

---

Now I'm going to show how you would do that last example with a version of Perl prior to v5.10.0

#! /usr/bin/env perl
use strict;
use warnings;

while( <> ){
  chomp;
  last unless $_;
  Collatz( $_ );
}
{
  my @next = (0,0); # essentially the same as a state variable
  sub Collatz{
    my( $n ) = @_;
    $n += 0; # ensure that it is numeric
    die 'invalid value' unless $n > 0;

    # fill out @next until we get to a value we've already worked on
    until( $n == 1 or defined $next[$n] ){
      print $n, "\n";

      if( $n % 2 ){ # odd
        $next[$n] = 3 * $n + 1;
      } else { # even
        $next[$n] = $n / 2;
      }
      $n = $next[$n];
    }
    print $n, "\n";

    # finish running until we get to 1
    print $n, "\n" while $n = $next[$n];
  }
}

---

Benchmark

First off the IO is always going to be the slow part. So if you actually benchmarked them as-is you should get about the same speed out of each one.

To test these then, I opened a file handle to /dev/null ($null), and edited every say $n to instead read say {$null} $n. This is to reduce the dependence on IO.

#! /usr/bin/env perl
use Modern::Perl;
use autodie;

open our $null, '>', '/dev/null';

use Benchmark qw':all';

cmpthese( -10,
{
  Recursive => sub{ Collatz_r( 31 ) },
  Iterative => sub{ Collatz_i( 31 ) },
  Optimized => sub{ Collatz_o( 31 ) },
});

sub Collatz_r{
  ...
  say {$null} $n;
  ...
}
sub Collatz_i{
  ...
  say {$null} $n;
  ...
}
sub Collatz_o{
  ...
  say {$null} $n;
  ...
}

After having run it 10 times, here is a representative sample output:

            Rate Recursive Iterative Optimized
Recursive 1715/s        --      -27%      -46%
Iterative 2336/s       36%        --      -27%
Optimized 3187/s       86%       36%        --

---

Finally, a real code-golf entry:

perl -nlE'say;say$_=$_%2?3*$_+1:$_/2while$_>1'

46 chars total

If you don't need to print the starting value, you could remove 5 more characters.

perl -nE'say$_=$_%2?3*$_+1:$_/2while$_>1'

41 chars total
_{31 chars for the actual code portion, but the code won't work without the -n switch. So I include the entire example in my count.}