Program to output a subset of the composite numbers

[Peter Otten]

Steven D'Aprano wrote:

> On Wed, 15 Aug 2018 05:34:06 -0700, tomusatov wrote:
> 
>> I am not terribly familiar with Python, but am currently authoring an
>> integer sequence for www.oeis.org and was wondering if anyone in the
>> community could help me with authoring a Python program that outputs,
>> "Composite numbers that are one less than a composite number."
> 
> 
> Do you have a function to test for primality? For now, I'll assume you do.
> 
> 
> def is_prime(n):
>     # Returns True if n is prime, False otherwise.
>     # implementation left as an exercise
> 
> 
> # 0 (and 1) are neither prime nor composite; skip them.
> # 2 and 3 are prime; start at the first composite, 4
> i = 4
> for j in range(5, 1001):
>     if not is_prime(j):
>         print(i)
>     i = j

I think that are "any numbers that are one less than a composite number" 
while the OP wants only composite numbers that are one less than a composite 
number". In code

from itertools import count, islice

def cntaoltacn():
    prev = None
    for i in count(2):
        if is_prime(i):
            prev = None
        else:
            if prev is not None:
                yield prev
            prev = i

print(list(islice(cntaoltacn(), 20)))
# [8, 9, 14, 15, 20, 21, 24, 25, 26, 27, 32, 33, 34, 35, 38, 39, 44, 45, 48, 
49]


> 
> 
> The above will stop at 999. To go forever, use this instead:
> 
> 
> 
> from itertools import count
> i = 4
> for j in count(5):
>     if not is_prime(j):
>         print(i)
>     i = j
> 
> 
> 
> Alternatively, if you have a function which efficiently returns primes
> one at a time, you can do this:
> 
> 
> n = 4  # start at the first composite
> for p in primes(5):  # primes starting at 5
>     print(list(range(n, p-1))
>     n = p + 1
> 
> 
> 
> This ought to print out lists of composites, starting with:
> 
> []
> []
> [8, 9]
> []
> [14, 15]
> 
> 
> etc. Take care though: I have not tested this code.
> 
> 
>