Fastest way to determine if an integer's square root is an integer

Question

I\'m looking for the fastest way to determine if a long value is a perfect square (i.e. its square root is another integer):

1. I\'ve done it the ea

Answer 1

Here is a divide and conquer solution.

If the square root of a natural number (number) is a natural number (solution), you can easily determine a range for solution based on the number of digits of number:

• number has 1 digit: solution in range = 1 - 4
• number has 2 digits: solution in range = 3 - 10
• number has 3 digits: solution in range = 10 - 40
• number has 4 digits: solution in range = 30 - 100
• number has 5 digits: solution in range = 100 - 400

Notice the repetition?

You can use this range in a binary search approach to see if there is a solution for which:

number == solution * solution

Here is the code

Here is my class SquareRootChecker

public class SquareRootChecker {

    private long number;
    private long initialLow;
    private long initialHigh;

    public SquareRootChecker(long number) {
        this.number = number;

        initialLow = 1;
        initialHigh = 4;
        if (Long.toString(number).length() % 2 == 0) {
            initialLow = 3;
            initialHigh = 10;
        }
        for (long i = 0; i < Long.toString(number).length() / 2; i++) {
            initialLow *= 10;
            initialHigh *= 10;
        }
        if (Long.toString(number).length() % 2 == 0) {
            initialLow /= 10;
            initialHigh /=10;
        }
    }

    public boolean checkSquareRoot() {
        return findSquareRoot(initialLow, initialHigh, number);
    }

    private boolean findSquareRoot(long low, long high, long number) {
        long check = low + (high - low) / 2;
        if (high >= low) {
            if (number == check * check) {
                return true;
            }
            else if (number < check * check) {
                high = check - 1;
                return findSquareRoot(low, high, number);
            }
            else  {
                low = check + 1;
                return findSquareRoot(low, high, number);
            }
        }
        return false;
    }

}

And here is an example on how to use it.

long number =  1234567;
long square = number * number;
SquareRootChecker squareRootChecker = new SquareRootChecker(square);
System.out.println(square + ": " + squareRootChecker.checkSquareRoot()); //Prints "1524155677489: true"

long notSquare = square + 1;
squareRootChecker = new SquareRootChecker(notSquare);
System.out.println(notSquare + ": " + squareRootChecker.checkSquareRoot()); //Prints "1524155677490: false"