Python Eratosthenes Sieve Algorithm Optimization

Question

I\'m attempting to implement the Sieve of Eratosthenes. The output seems to be correct (minus \"2\" that needs to be added) but if the input to the function is larger than 1

Answer 1

Your algorithm is not the Sieve of Eratosthenes. You perform trial division (the modulus operator) instead of crossing-off multiples, as Eratosthenes did over two thousand years ago. Here is an explanation of the true sieving algorithm, and shown below is my simple, straight forward implementation, which returns a list of primes not exceeding n:

def sieve(n):
    m = (n-1) // 2
    b = [True]*m
    i,p,ps = 0,3,[2]
    while p*p < n:
        if b[i]:
            ps.append(p)
            j = 2*i*i + 6*i + 3
            while j < m:
                b[j] = False
                j = j + 2*i + 3
        i+=1; p+=2
    while i < m:
        if b[i]:
            ps.append(p)
        i+=1; p+=2
    return ps

We sieve only on the odd numbers, stopping at the square root of n. The odd-looking calculations on j map between the integers being sieved 3, 5, 7, 9, ... and indexes 0, 1, 2, 3, ... in the b array of bits.

You can see this function in action at http://ideone.com/YTaMB, where it computes the primes to a million in less than a second.