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Challenges

Comments on Reduce over the range [1..n]

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Reduce over the range [1..n]

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Task

I often need to find the factorial of a number or the sum of all numbers up to a number when cheating on math tests. To help me with this, your task is to write $F$, a generalized version of those functions:

$$F(n) = 1 * 2 * \space ... \space * (n-1) * n$$

Please note that the operator $ * $ does not necessarily represent multiplication here, but stands for a commutative, associative operator that will be an input to your program/function. This means that $a * b$ is the same as $b * a$, and $a * (b * c)$ is the same as $(a * b) * c$. Its inputs are positive integers, and its outputs are integers.

Rules

  • $n$ will be a positive integer.
  • $*$ is a binary function/operator that can be taken in any convenient format, including but not limited to:
    • A function object
    • A function pointer
    • An object with a method with a specific name (e.g. Java's BiFunction)
    • A string that can be evaluated to get a function
  • $*$ is a blackbox function. That means that you will not be able to examine it to see how it works; all you can do is feed it two positive integers and get an integer back.
  • The output of your function will be an integer (not necessarily positive).
  • This is code golf, so shortest code in bytes wins!

Testcases

f         | n  | F(f, n)
Add       | 1  | 1
Add       | 5  | 15
Multiply  | 1  | 1
Multiply  | 5  | 120
XOR       | 1  | 1
XOR       | 2  | 3
XOR       | 5  | 1
XOR       | 10 | 11
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1 comment thread

Function constraint (2 comments)
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C (clang), 59 bytes

c;f(int a,(*b)(int,int)){for(c=a;a>1;)c=b(--a,c);return c;}

Try it online!

This program written by @Hakerh400 in the comments is basically how the other answers before this post existed actually did it, by a reduction sort of method. I'd like to thank them for making such program and the amount of bytes it literally shaved compared to the program below.


C (clang), 142 103 bytes

i,j;f(a,b){if(b==42){j=1;}for(i=1;i<=a;i++){if(b==43){j+=i;}if(b==42){j*=i;}if(b==94){j^=i;}}return j;}

Try it online!

I wanted to try to make something similar to this, but with whatever Python has that C doesn't, I couldn't do so.

Instead, I chose to make a function. It works differently from the others, but it's all I could do.

Ungolfed form of the function with comments:

int f(int num, char operator){ // Assign a function with 2 parameters: a number and character for operations
	int x, result = 0; // Assign 2 integers: the succeeding number and the base
	if(operator == '*' || operator == '/'){result = 1;} // Check if the character resembles multiplication or division; if so, set base as 1
	for(x = 1; x <= num; x++){ // Start a loop to prompt the calculation that satisfies the challenge
		if(operator == 43){result += x;} // Addition
		if(operator == 42){result *= x;} // Multiplication
		if(operator == 94){result ^= x;} // XOR
	}
	return result; // Return the result
}
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2 comment threads

Subtraction and division (1 comment)
Function instead of an operator (1 comment)
Subtraction and division
Hakerh400‭ wrote over 2 years ago

Your examples may not include subtraction and division, as the challenge explicitly states that the function must be commutative and associative.