Code Golf: Leibniz formula for Pi

Question

I recently posted one of my favourite interview whiteboard coding questions in "What's your more controversial programming opinion", which is to write a function that computes Pi using the Leibniz formula.

It can be approached in a number of different ways, and the exit condition takes a bit of thought, so I thought it might make an interesting code golf question. Shortest code wins!

Given that Pi can be estimated using the function 4 * (1 - 1/3 + 1/5 - 1/7 + ...) with more terms giving greater accuracy, write a function that calculates Pi to within 0.00001.

Edit: 3 Jan 2008

As suggested in the comments I changed the exit condition to be within 0.00001 as that's what I really meant (an accuracy 5 decimal places is much harder due to rounding and so I wouldn't want to ask that in an interview, whereas within 0.00001 is an easier to understand and implement exit condition).

Also, to answer the comments, I guess my intention was that the solution should compute the number of iterations, or check when it had done enough, but there's nothing to prevent you from pre-computing the number of iterations and using that number. I really asked the question out of interest to see what people would come up with.

Answer 1

Oracle SQL 73 chars

select -4*sum(power(-1,level)/(level*2-1)) from dual connect by level<1e6

Answer 2

Language: C99 (implicit return 0), Char count: 99 (95 + 4 required spaces)

exit condition depends on current value, not on a fixed count

#include <stdio.h>

float p, s=4, d=1;
int main(void) {
  for (; 4/d > 1E-5; d += 2)
        p -= (s = -s) / d;
  printf("%g\n", p);
}

compacted version

#include<stdio.h>
float
p,s=4,d=1;int
main(void){for(;4/d>1E-5;d+=2)p-=(s=-s)/d;printf("%g\n",p);}

Answer 3

F#:

Attempt #1:

let pi = 3.14159

Cheating? No, its winning with style!

Attempt #2:

let pi =
    seq { 0 .. 100 }
    |> Seq.map (fun x -> float x)
    |> Seq.fold (fun x y -> x + (Math.Pow(-1.0, y)/(2.0 * y + 1.0))) 0.0
    |> (fun x -> x * 4.0)

Its not as compact as it could possibly get, but pretty idiomatic F#.

Answer 4

Language: dc, Char count: 35

dc -e '9k0 1[d4r/r2+sar-lad274899>b]dsbxrp'

Answer 5

C# using iterator block:

static IEnumerable<double> Pi()
{
    double i = 4, j = 1, k = 4;
    for (;;)
    {
        yield return k;
        k += (i *= -1) / (j += 2);
    }
}

Answer 6

Most of the current answers assume that they'll get 5 digits accuracy within some number of iterations and this number is hardcoded into the program. My understanding of the question was that the program itself is supposed to figure out when it's got an answer accurate to 5 digits and stop there. On that assumption here's my C# solution. I haven't bothered to minimise the number of characters since there's no way it can compete with some of the answers already out there, so I thought I'd make it readable instead. :)

    private static double GetPi()
    {
        double acc = 1, sign = -1, lastCheck = 0;

        for (double div = 3; ; div += 2, sign *= -1)
        {
            acc += sign / div;

            double currPi = acc * 4;
            double currCheck = Math.Round(currPi, 5);

            if (currCheck == lastCheck)
                return currPi;

            lastCheck = currCheck;
        }
    }