How can I calculate a factorial in C# using a library call?

Question

I need to calculate the factorial of numbers up to around 100! in order to determine if a series of coin flip-style data is random, as per this Wikipedia entry on Bayesian p

Answer 1

Do you want to calculate factorials, or binomial coefficients?

It sounds like you want to calculate binomial coefficients - especially as you mention 11!/(7!3!).

There may be a library that can do this for you, but as a (presumably) programmer visiting stack overflow there's no reason not to write one yourself. It's not too complicated.

To avoid memory overflow, don't evaluate the result until all common factors are removed.

This algorithm still needs to be improved, but you have the basis for a good algorithm here. The denominator values need to be split into their prime factors for the best result. As it stands, this will run for n = 50 quite quickly.

float CalculateBinomial(int n, int k)
{
    var numerator = new List();
    var denominator = new List();
    var denominatorOld = new List();

    // again ignore the k! common terms
    for (int i = k + 1; i <= n; i++)
        numerator.Add(i);

    for (int i = 1; i <= (n - k); i++)
    {
        denominator.AddRange(SplitIntoPrimeFactors(i));
    }

    // remove all common factors
    int remainder;                
    for (int i = 0; i < numerator.Count(); i++)
    {
        for (int j = 0; j < denominator.Count() 
            && numerator[i] >= denominator[j]; j++)
        {
            if (denominator[j] > 1)
            {
                int result = Math.DivRem(numerator[i], denominator[j], out remainder);
                if (remainder == 0)
                {
                    numerator[i] = result;
                    denominator[j] = 1;
                }
            }
        }
    }

    float denominatorResult = 1;
    float numeratorResult = 1;

    denominator.RemoveAll(x => x == 1);
    numerator.RemoveAll(x => x == 1);

    denominator.ForEach(d => denominatorResult = denominatorResult * d);
    numerator.ForEach(num => numeratorResult = numeratorResult * num);

    return numeratorResult / denominatorResult;
}

static List Primes = new List() { 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 
    23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, 47, 53, 59, 61, 67, 71, 73, 79, 83, 89, 97 };

List SplitIntoPrimeFactors(int x)
{
    var results = new List();
    int remainder = 0;

    int i = 0;
    while (!Primes.Contains(x) && x != 1)
    {
        int result = Math.DivRem(x, Primes[i], out remainder);
        if (remainder == 0)
        {
            results.Add(Primes[i]);
            x = result;
            i = 0;
        }
        else
        {
            i++;
        }
    }
    results.Add(x);
    return results;
}

I can estimate n = 110, k = 50 (returns 6x10^31) but cannot run n = 120, k = 50.