Mapping two integers to one, in a unique and deterministic way

Question

Imagine two positive integers A and B. I want to combine these two into a single integer C.

There can be no other integers D and E which combine to C. So combining

Answer 1

Say you have a 32 bit integer, why not just move A into the first 16 bit half and B into the other?

def vec_pack(vec):
    return vec[0] + vec[1] * 65536;


def vec_unpack(number):
    return [number % 65536, number // 65536];

Other than this being as space efficient as possible and cheap to compute, a really cool side effect is that you can do vector math on the packed number.

a = vec_pack([2,4])
b = vec_pack([1,2])

print(vec_unpack(a+b)) # [3, 6] Vector addition
print(vec_unpack(a-b)) # [1, 2] Vector subtraction
print(vec_unpack(a*2)) # [4, 8] Scalar multiplication

Answer 2

let us have two number B and C , encoding them into single number A

A = B + C * N

where

B=A % N = B

C=A / N = C

Answer 3

If A and B can be expressed with 2 bytes, you can combine them on 4 bytes. Put A on the most significant half and B on the least significant half.

In C language this gives (assuming sizeof(short)=2 and sizeof(int)=4):

int combine(short A, short B)
{
    return A<<16 | B;
}

short getA(int C)
{
    return C>>16;
}

short getB(int C)
{
    return C & 0xFFFF;
}

Answer 4

It isn't that tough to construct a mapping:

   1  2  3  4  5  use this mapping if (a,b) != (b,a)
1  0  1  3  6 10
2  2  4  7 11 16
3  5  8 12 17 23
4  9 13 18 24 31
5 14 19 25 32 40

   1  2  3  4  5 use this mapping if (a,b) == (b,a) (mirror)
1  0  1  2  4  6
2  1  3  5  7 10
3  2  5  8 11 14
4  4  8 11 15 19
5  6 10 14 19 24


    0  1 -1  2 -2 use this if you need negative/positive
 0  0  1  2  4  6
 1  1  3  5  7 10
-1  2  5  8 11 14
 2  4  8 11 15 19
-2  6 10 14 19 24

Figuring out how to get the value for an arbitrary a,b is a little more difficult.

Answer 5

Check this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigeonhole_principle. If A, B and C are of same type, it cannot be done. If A and B are 16-bit integers, and C is 32-bit, then you can simply use shifting.

The very nature of hashing algorithms is that they cannot provide a unique hash for each different input.

Answer 6

Here is an extension of @DoctorJ 's code to unbounded integers based on the method given by @nawfal. It can encode and decode. It works with normal arrays and numpy arrays.

#!/usr/bin/env python
from numbers import Integral    

def tuple_to_int(tup):
    """:Return: the unique non-negative integer encoding of a tuple of non-negative integers."""
    if len(tup) == 0:  # normally do if not tup, but doesn't work with np
        raise ValueError('Cannot encode empty tuple')
    if len(tup) == 1:
        x = tup[0]
        if not isinstance(x, Integral):
            raise ValueError('Can only encode integers')
        return x
    elif len(tup) == 2:
        # print("len=2")
        x, y = tuple_to_int(tup[0:1]), tuple_to_int(tup[1:2])  # Just to validate x and y

        X = 2 * x if x >= 0 else -2 * x - 1  # map x to positive integers
        Y = 2 * y if y >= 0 else -2 * y - 1  # map y to positive integers
        Z = (X * X + X + Y) if X >= Y else (X + Y * Y)  # encode

        # Map evens onto positives
        if (x >= 0 and y >= 0):
            return Z // 2
        elif (x < 0 and y >= 0 and X >= Y):
            return Z // 2
        elif (x < 0 and y < 0 and X < Y):
            return Z // 2
        # Map odds onto negative
        else:
            return (-Z - 1) // 2
    else:
        return tuple_to_int((tuple_to_int(tup[:2]),) + tuple(tup[2:]))  # ***speed up tuple(tup[2:])?***


def int_to_tuple(num, size=2):
    """:Return: the unique tuple of length `size` that encodes to `num`."""
    if not isinstance(num, Integral):
        raise ValueError('Can only encode integers (got {})'.format(num))
    if not isinstance(size, Integral) or size < 1:
        raise ValueError('Tuple is the wrong size ({})'.format(size))
    if size == 1:
        return (num,)
    elif size == 2:

        # Mapping onto positive integers
        Z = -2 * num - 1 if num < 0 else 2 * num

        # Reversing Pairing
        s = isqrt(Z)
        if Z - s * s < s:
            X, Y = Z - s * s, s
        else:
            X, Y = s, Z - s * s - s

        # Undoing mappint to positive integers
        x = (X + 1) // -2 if X % 2 else X // 2  # True if X not divisible by 2
        y = (Y + 1) // -2 if Y % 2 else Y // 2  # True if Y not divisible by 2

        return x, y

    else:
        x, y = int_to_tuple(num, 2)
        return int_to_tuple(x, size - 1) + (y,)


def isqrt(n):
    """":Return: the largest integer x for which x * x does not exceed n."""
    # Newton's method, via http://stackoverflow.com/a/15391420
    x = n
    y = (x + 1) // 2
    while y < x:
        x = y
        y = (x + n // x) // 2
    return x