• @olafurp
    link
    427 months ago

    Of course there’s an easier way. Just integrate the state of the art API dedicated for this exact problem. https://isevenapi.xyz/

    • @misophist
      link
      327 months ago

      This is confusing. I’m already using the iSeven API to determine if a number is 7. I’m getting a namespace collision error when I try to load this new API. Bug report filed.

  • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet
    link
    207 months ago

    Back when I was learning programming a lot of lessons would make you do something like this, and then show you the real way to do it in the next lesson. My reaction was always “why didn’t you lead with this?”.

    • @Coreidan
      link
      English
      67 months ago

      Because the point of the lesson is to demonstrate that you can solve the same problem multiple ways where some paths are more efficient than others.

      Bad programmers are the ones that find the first solution and implement it no matter how inefficient it is.

      Good programmers spend time on figuring out the solution with the least amount broken or inefficient code. You don’t learn this by jumping straight to the best answer every time.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    16
    edit-2
    7 months ago

    My solution in perl back in the day when I was a teenage hobbyist who didn’t know about the modulus operator: Divide by 2 and use regex to check for a decimal point.

    if ($num / 2 =~ /\./) { return “odd” }
    else { return “even” }

      • @Chobbes
        link
        37 months ago

        You know, I was going to let this slide under the notion that we’re just ignoring the limited precision of floating point numbers… But then I thought about it and it’s probably not right even if you were computing with real numbers! The decimal representation of real numbers isn’t unique, so this could tell me that “2 = 1.9999…” is odd. Maybe your string coercion is guaranteed to return the finite decimal representation, but I think that would be undecidable.

        • @backgroundcow
          link
          37 months ago

          Ackchyually-- IEEE 754 guarantees any integer with absolute value less than 2^24 to be exactly representable as a single precision float. So, the “divide by 2, check for decimals” should be safe as long as the origin of the number being checked is somewhat reasonable.

          • @Chobbes
            link
            17 months ago

            Of course, but it’s somewhat nasty when all of a sudden is_even doesn’t do what you expect :).

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          17 months ago

          The decimal representation of real numbers isn’t unique, so this could tell me that “2 = 1.9999…” is odd.

          I don’t think your belief holds water. By definition an even number, once divided by 2, maps to an integer. In binary representations, this is equivalent to a right shift. You do not get a rounding error or decimal parts.

          But this is nitpicking a tongue-in-cheek comment.

          • @Chobbes
            link
            17 months ago

            “1.99999…” is an integer, though! If you’re computing with arbitrary real numbers and serializing it to a string, how do you know to print “2” instead of “1.9999…”? This shouldn’t be decidable, naively if you have a program that prints “1.” and then repeatedly runs a step of an arbitrary Turing machine and then prints “9” if it did not terminate and stops printing otherwise, determining if the number being printed would be equal to 2 would solve the halting problem.

            Arbitrary precision real numbers are not represented by finite binary integers. Also a right shift on a normal binary integer cannot tell you if the number is even. A right shift is only division by 2 on even numbers, otherwise it’s division by 2 rounded down to the nearest integer. But if you have a binary integer and you want to know if it’s even you can just check the least significant bit.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    11
    edit-2
    7 months ago
    def is_even(n):
        match n:
            case 1:
                return False
            case 0:
                return True
            # fix No1
            case n < 0:
                return is_even(-1*n)
            case _:
                return is_even(n-2)
    
    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      47 months ago

      Python added match/case?! Bunch of mypy issues have been closed too. Maybe its time to dust off some old projects.

    • @Chobbes
      link
      37 months ago

      Well… At least it’s tail recursive.

  • recursive_recursion [they/them]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    7
    edit-2
    7 months ago

    modulo

    pseudocode:

    if number % 2 == 0
      return "number is even" (is_num_even = 1 or true)
    else
      return "number is odd" (is_num_even = 0 or false)
    

    plus you’d want an input validation beforehand

    • mac
      link
      fedilink
      15
      edit-2
      7 months ago

      who needs modulo when you can get less characters out of

      while (number > 1) {
        number -= 2;
      }
      return number;
      

      very efficient

      edit: or theres the trusty iseven api

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      47 months ago
      #You are an input. You have value! You matter!
      if number % 2 == 0
        return "number is even" (is_num_even = 1 or true)
      else
        return "number is odd" (is_num_even = 0 or false)
      

      Am I doing it right? /S.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      27 months ago

      This code is terrible. If you input 10.66 it returns "number is odd

      It should be:

      if number % 2 == 0
        return "number is even" (is_num_even = 1 or true)
      else
        return "number is not even" (is_num_even = 0 or false)
      
  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    27 months ago

    I would love it if someone edited this example and posted it with two statements near the end that are reversed, implying inconsistent behaviour at random in the list ahead, seemingly making this solution less inefficient.

  • NostraDavid
    link
    fedilink
    17 months ago

    You joke, but I’ve seen a programming language that didn’t have a loop, and if you copied a line of text and pasted it in a text editor, JSON would come out…

    The editor could barely handle 400+ lines because it probably converted the text to JSON, added a letter and converted it back to JSON… Per inserted symbol…