faster implementation of sum ( for Codility test )

Question

How can the following simple implementation of sum be faster?

private long sum( int [] a, int begin, int end ) {
    if( a == null   ) {
        ret         


        

Answer 1

I don't believe the problem is in the code you provided, but somehow the bigger solution must be suboptimal. This code looks good for calculating the sum of one slice of the array, but maybe it's not what you need to solve the whole problem.

Answer 2

private static int equi ( int[] A ) {
    if (A == null || A.length == 0)
     return -1;
 long tot = 0;
 int len = A.length;
 for(int i=0;i<len;i++)
     tot += A[i];
 if(tot == 0)
     return (len-1);
 long partTot = 0;
 for(int i=0;i<len-1;i++)
 {
  partTot += A[i];
  if(partTot*2+A[i+1] == tot)
   return i+1;
 }
 return -1;

}

I considered the array as a bilance so if the equilibrium index exist then half of the weight is on the left. So I only compare the partTot (partial total) x 2 with the total weight of the array. the Alg takes O(n) + O(n)

Answer 3

This may be old, but here is solution in Golang with 100% pass rate:

package solution

func Solution(A []int) int {
    // write your code in Go 1.4
    var left int64
    var right int64
    var equi int

    equi = -1
    if len(A) == 0 {
        return equi
    }

    left = 0
    for _, el := range A {
        right += int64(el)
    }

    for i, el := range A {
        right -= int64(el)
        if left == right {
            equi = i
        }
        left += int64(el)
    }

    return equi
}

Answer 4

{In Pascal + Assembly}
{$ASMMODE INTEL}
function equi (A : Array of longint; n : longint ) : longint;
var c:Longint;
    label noOverflow1;
    label noOverflow2;
    label ciclo;
    label fine;
    label Over;
    label tot;
Begin
 Asm
    DEC n
    JS over
    XOR ECX, ECX   {Somma1}
    XOR EDI, EDI   {Somma2}
    XOR EAX, EAX
    MOV c, EDI
    MOV ESI, n
  tot:
    MOV EDX, A
    MOV EDX, [EDX+ESI*4]
    PUSH EDX
    ADD ECX, EDX
    JNO nooverflow1
    ADD c, ECX
    nooverflow1:
    DEC ESI
  JNS tot;
    SUB ECX, c
    SUB EDI, c
  ciclo:
    POP EDX
    SUB ECX, EDX
    CMP ECX, EDI
    JE fine
    ADD EDI, EDX
    JNO nooverflow2
    DEC EDI
    nooverflow2:
    CMP EAX, n
    JA over
    INC EAX
    JMP ciclo
    over:
      MOV EAX, -1
    fine:
  end;
End;

Answer 5

I don't think your problem is with the function that's summing the array, it's probably that you're summing the array WAY to frequently. If you simply sum the WHOLE array once, and then step through the array until you find the first equilibrium point you should decrease the execution time sufficiently.

int equi ( int[] A ) {
    int equi = -1;

    long lower = 0;
    long upper = 0;
    foreach (int i in A)
        upper += i;

    for (int i = 0; i < A.Length; i++)
    {
        upper -= A[i];
        if (upper == lower)
        {
            equi = i;
            break;
        }
        else
            lower += A[i];
    }

    return equi;
}

Answer 6

In C# 3.0, my computer and my OS this is faster as long as you can guarantee that 4 consecutive numbers won't overflow the range of an int, probably because most additions are done using 32-bit math. However using a better algorithm usually provides higher speed up than any micro-optimization.

Time for a 100 millon elements array:

4999912596452418 -> 233ms (sum)

4999912596452418 -> 126ms (sum2)

    private static long sum2(int[] a, int begin, int end)
    {
        if (a == null) { return 0; }
        long r = 0;
        int i = begin;
        for (; i < end - 3; i+=4)
        {
            //int t = ;
            r += a[i] + a[i + 1] + a[i + 2] + a[i + 3];
        }
        for (; i < end; i++) { r += a[i]; }
        return r;
    }