Simple Prime Generator in Python

Question

Could someone please tell me what I'm doing wrong with this code? It is just printing 'count' anyway. I just want a very simple prime generator (nothing fancy).

import math

def main():
    count = 3
    one = 1
    while one == 1:
        for x in range(2, int(math.sqrt(count) + 1)):
            if count % x == 0: 
                continue
            if count % x != 0:
                print count

        count += 1

Answer 1

def primes(n): # simple Sieve of Eratosthenes 
   odds = range(3, n+1, 2)
   sieve = set(sum([range(q*q, n+1, q+q) for q in odds],[]))
   return [2] + [p for p in odds if p not in sieve]

>>> primes(50)
[2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, 47]

To test if a number is prime:

>>> 541 in primes(541)
True
>>> 543 in primes(543)
False

Answer 2

You can create a list of primes using list comprehensions in a fairly elegant manner. Taken from here:

>>> noprimes = [j for i in range(2, 8) for j in range(i*2, 50, i)]
>>> primes = [x for x in range(2, 50) if x not in noprimes]
>>> print primes
>>> [2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, 47]

Answer 3

Another simple example, with a simple optimization of only considering odd numbers. Everything done with lazy streams (python generators).

Usage: primes = list(create_prime_iterator(1, 30))

import math
import itertools

def create_prime_iterator(rfrom, rto):
    """Create iterator of prime numbers in range [rfrom, rto]"""
    prefix = [2] if rfrom < 3 and rto > 1 else [] # include 2 if it is in range separately as it is a "weird" case of even prime
    odd_rfrom = 3 if rfrom < 3 else make_odd(rfrom) # make rfrom an odd number so that  we can skip all even nubers when searching for primes, also skip 1 as a non prime odd number.
    odd_numbers = (num for num in xrange(odd_rfrom, rto + 1, 2))
    prime_generator = (num for num in odd_numbers if not has_odd_divisor(num))
    return itertools.chain(prefix, prime_generator)

def has_odd_divisor(num):
    """Test whether number is evenly divisable by odd divisor."""
    maxDivisor = int(math.sqrt(num))
    for divisor in xrange(3, maxDivisor + 1, 2):
        if num % divisor == 0:
            return True
    return False

def make_odd(number):
    """Make number odd by adding one to it if it was even, otherwise return it unchanged"""
    return number | 1

Answer 4

SymPy is a Python library for symbolic mathematics. It provides several functions to generate prime numbers.

isprime(n)              # Test if n is a prime number (True) or not (False).

primerange(a, b)        # Generate a list of all prime numbers in the range [a, b).
randprime(a, b)         # Return a random prime number in the range [a, b).
primepi(n)              # Return the number of prime numbers less than or equal to n.

prime(nth)              # Return the nth prime, with the primes indexed as prime(1) = 2. The nth prime is approximately n*log(n) and can never be larger than 2**n.
prevprime(n, ith=1)     # Return the largest prime smaller than n
nextprime(n)            # Return the ith prime greater than n

sieve.primerange(a, b)  # Generate all prime numbers in the range [a, b), implemented as a dynamically growing sieve of Eratosthenes. 

Here are some examples.

>>> import sympy
>>> 
>>> sympy.isprime(5)
True
>>> list(sympy.primerange(0, 100))
[2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, 47, 53, 59, 61, 67, 71, 73, 79, 83, 89, 97]
>>> sympy.randprime(0, 100)
83
>>> sympy.randprime(0, 100)
41
>>> sympy.prime(3)
5
>>> sympy.prevprime(50)
47
>>> sympy.nextprime(50)
53
>>> list(sympy.sieve.primerange(0, 100))
[2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, 47, 53, 59, 61, 67, 71, 73, 79, 83, 89, 97]

Answer 5

Here is a numpy version of Sieve of Eratosthenes having both okay complexity (lower than sorting an array of length n) and vectorization.

import numpy as np 
def generate_primes(n):
    is_prime = np.ones(n+1,dtype=bool)
    is_prime[0:2] = False
    for i in range(int(n**0.5)+1):
        if is_prime[i]:
            is_prime[i*2::i]=False
    return np.where(is_prime)[0]

Timings:

import time    
for i in range(2,10):
    timer =time.time()
    generate_primes(10**i)
    print('n = 10^',i,' time =', round(time.time()-timer,6))

>> n = 10^ 2  time = 5.6e-05
>> n = 10^ 3  time = 6.4e-05
>> n = 10^ 4  time = 0.000114
>> n = 10^ 5  time = 0.000593
>> n = 10^ 6  time = 0.00467
>> n = 10^ 7  time = 0.177758
>> n = 10^ 8  time = 1.701312
>> n = 10^ 9  time = 19.322478

Answer 6

This seems homework-y, so I'll give a hint rather than a detailed explanation. Correct me if I've assumed wrong.

You're doing fine as far as bailing out when you see an even divisor.

But you're printing 'count' as soon as you see even one number that doesn't divide into it. 2, for instance, does not divide evenly into 9. But that doesn't make 9 a prime. You might want to keep going until you're sure no number in the range matches.

(as others have replied, a Sieve is a much more efficient way to go... just trying to help you understand why this specific code isn't doing what you want)