Iteration for Factorials

[mensanator at aol.com]

On Oct 22, 4:39 pm, "mensana... at aol.com" <mensana... at aol.com> wrote:
> On Oct 22, 3:38 pm, Paul Rudin <paul.nos... at rudin.co.uk> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > tokl... at gmail.com writes:
> > > On 22 oct, 20:35, Paul Rudin <paul.nos... at rudin.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > >> import operator
> > >> def fact(x):
> > >>     return reduce(operator.mul, xrange(1,x))
>
> > > Maybe:
>
> > > import operator
> > > def fact(x):
> > >     return reduce(operator.mul, xrange(2, x+1), 1)
>
> > Or just:
>
> > reduce(operator.mul, xrange(1, x), 1)
>
> Nope, still doesn't work:
>
> >>> def fact(x):
>
>         return reduce(operator.mul,xrange(1,x+1),1)

Excuse me, I mistyped your proposed solution. You had
xrange(1,x) not xrange(1,x+1). The former only returns
correct factorials for x==0 and x==1.

Sorry for the confusion.

>
> >>> fact(3)
> 6
> >>> fact(2)
> 2
> >>> fact(1)
> 1
> >>> fact(0)
> 1
> >>> fact(-1)
> 1
> >>> fact(-2)
> 1
> >>> fact(-3)
>
> 1
>
> fact() should raise an exception if x is negative.
>
> My variant of your original (same as Tim Chase's except the
> test for x==1 is not necessary):
>
> >>> def fact(x):
>
>         if x==0:
>                 return 1
>         else:
>                 return reduce(operator.mul,xrange(1,x+1))
>
>
>
> >>> fact(3)
> 6
> >>> fact(2)
> 2
> >>> fact(1)
> 1
> >>> fact(0)
> 1
> >>> fact(-1)
>
> Traceback (most recent call last):
>   File "<pyshell#40>", line 1, in <module>
>     fact(-1)
>   File "<pyshell#35>", line 5, in fact
>     return reduce(operator.mul,xrange(1,x+1))
> TypeError: reduce() of empty sequence with no initial value- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -