This quiz is really just an optimization problem. It’s pretty trivial
to do a
conversion to and from a Goedel number. See Eric L.'s
under-30-lines
solution for a great example of this. The challenge arises when the
message
gets big enough that finding all of the factors takes significant time.
Eric I. figured out how to cut quite a few corners on the decoding
process, so I
want to take a look at his code.
Before we get into the actual encoding and decoding process though,
let’s talk a
bit about primes. Obviously, we need a source of prime numbers to do
our work.
Ruby does ship with a standard mathn library that includes a Prime
class. Many
solutions did put that library to good use. There are two downsides to
that
approach though: mathn is a pure Ruby library and the Prime class
implementation in Ruby 1.8 is not very clever. Both of these slow us
down.
To get around that, Eric built a drop-in replacement for the Prime class
that
cheats. It simply reads the numbers from a huge list you can download,
skipping
any calculation effort. This turns out to be faster for our needs.
Here’s the
code:
Generates a stream of prime numbers as they’re read from a sequence
of files with names such as “primes1.txt”, “primes2.txt”, and so
forth. Such files can be downloaded from:
The first fifty million primes
class Prime
def initialize
@current_file = 0
@io = open_next_file
@current_primes = []
@current_index = 0
end
def next
load_next_primes until value = @current_primes[@current_index]
@current_index += 1
value
end
private
def load_next_primes
while true
while line = @io.gets
if line =~ /^\s*\d+(\s+\d+)*\s*$/
@current_primes = line.split.map { |e| e.to_i }
@current_index = 0
return
end
end
@io.close
open_next_file
end
end
def open_next_file
@current_file += 1
filename = "primes%d.txt" % @current_file
begin
@io = open(filename)
rescue
raise "ran out of primes because couldn't open file \"%s\"" %
filename
end
end
end
As you can see, this is simple stuff. The class just opens a file
called
primes1.txt when initialize()d (see open_next_file()). As needed, lines
are
read from this file, split() and converted into Integers, and tucked
away inside
an Array (see load_next_primes()). Primes are then just handed out from
this
Array (see next()) and when the supply is exhausted new lines are read.
When we
run out of lines, the code will move on to a primes2.txt file.
The site linked to in the comment has the first 15 million primes
available in
files like this. That more than covers the needs of this code, so this
turns
out to be a simple but effective cheat to save time.
With a zippy Prime class defined, we are ready to get down to the real
work:
require ‘primes’ # or the standard mathn library
Put the coder in a separate class, so we have the potential to use
other coders, such as the one from the Starburst novel.
class RubyQuizCoder
def encode(char)
char[0] + 1
end
def decode(number)
(number - 1).chr
end
def max_code
127
end
end
…
Here we see the require for the code that we just examined. Note that
this code
will work fine with a mathn require as well though.
The class defined here is the simple encoding described in the quiz. As
the
comment indicates, pulling this code into the class makes it easy to
swap out
with other encoding schemes.
The work horse methods for the solution are encode() and decode(), of
course.
Here’s the easy one:
…
def encode(input, primes, coder)
goedel_value = 1
input.each_line do |line|
0.upto(line.size - 1) do |i|
char = line[i, 1]
encoding = coder.encode char
next if encoding.nil? # skip characters without encoding
goedel_value *= primes.next ** encoding
end
end
puts goedel_value
end
…
The code works its way line by line and character by character through
the
input. Each character is encoded using the RubyQuizCoder class we saw
earlier,
used as an exponent for a prime based on its position, and finally
multiplied
into the overall Goedel value. When all of the characters have been
dealt with,
the overall value is printed as a result.
The reverse operation is harder to digest, because it’s where the
optimizations
are hiding:
…
Attempt to decode quickly by trying to perfectly divide by
prime**(26), prime(25), prime(24), …, prime(2**0) and
then adding the powers of 2 for which the division worked without a
remainder. For example, if a number were divisible by prime**101,
then it’s also divisible by prime64 * prime32 * prime**4 *
prime**1 since 64 + 32 + 4 + 1 = 101. So, we’ll have to divide the
large number exactly 7 times per prime no matter what the exponent.
Note: 7 assumes that the encoding results in no value greater than
127.
def decode(input, primes, coder)
goedel_value = input.gets.to_i
max_two_expnt = (Math.log(coder.max_code) / Math.log(2)).to_i
factors = (0…max_two_expnt).map { |i| [2**i, nil] }
while goedel_value > 1
current_prime = primes.next
encoded = 0
factors[0][1] = current_prime
(1..max_two_expnt).each do |i|
factors[i][1] = factors[i - 1][1] ** 2
end
factors.reverse_each do |expnt, factor|
quotient, remainder = goedel_value.divmod(factor)
if remainder == 0
encoded += expnt
goedel_value = quotient
end
end
char = coder.decode(encoded)
putc char unless char.nil?
end
end
…
The biggest trick in here is the use of factorization to narrow down the
divisions needed. Until the overall value hits one, each prime is
pulled in
turn and factored into the possible divisors. Each of those numbers is
then
tried in reverse order. Those that divide evenly are added to the
encoded
character count and drop the overall count accordingly. After all of
the
factors have been tried, the character count is passed through our
RubyQuizCoder
object and the resulting character is printed.
This strategy results in a constant number of divisions for each
character and
in most cases, those divisions should be significantly less than the
brute force
approach.
The rest of the code just provides an interface to these routines:
…
def usage
STDERR.puts “Usage: %s -e[ncode]|-d[ecode] [file]” % $0
exit 1
end
process command-line args and figure out which method to call
task = nil
input = nil
ARGV.each do |arg|
case arg
when /^-+e/ : task = :encode
when /^-+d/ : task = :decode
else if input : usage
else input = open(arg)
end
end
end
input = STDIN if input.nil?
primes = Prime.new
coder = RubyQuizCoder.new
case task
when :encode : encode(input, primes, coder)
when :decode : decode(input, primes, coder)
else usage
end
This is just some basic argument parsing code. It hunts for a -e or -d
switch
to figure out if we are encoding or decoding. It also opens a file of
input for
the first non-switch argument or defaults to STDIN. Failing to select a
mode or
providing multiple input parameters triggers the usage message and an
exit()
call. Otherwise, the selected routine is called with the input, a prime
generator, and the coder.
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272173230499663950656487104976363578669988246793426315517241324669161225
95456614469899787029059315850805248000000000000000000000000000000000
Tomorrow we will …