Finding the LCM of a range of numbers

Question

I read an interesting DailyWTF post today, \"Out of All The Possible Answers...\" and it interested me enough to dig up the original forum post where it was submitted. This

Answer 1

An algorithm in Haskell. This is the language I think in nowadays for algorithmic thinking. This might seem strange, complicated, and uninviting -- welcome to Haskell!

primes :: (Integral a) => [a]
--implementation of primes is to be left for another day.

primeFactors :: (Integral a) => a -> [a]
primeFactors n = go n primes where
    go n ps@(p : pt) =
        if q < 1 then [] else
        if r == 0 then p : go q ps else
        go n pt
        where (q, r) = quotRem n p

multiFactors :: (Integral a) => a -> [(a, Int)]
multiFactors n = [ (head xs, length xs) | xs <- group $ primeFactors $ n ]

multiProduct :: (Integral a) => [(a, Int)] -> a
multiProduct xs = product $ map (uncurry (^)) $ xs

mergeFactorsPairwise [] bs = bs
mergeFactorsPairwise as [] = as
mergeFactorsPairwise a@((an, am) : _) b@((bn, bm) : _) =
    case compare an bn of
        LT -> (head a) : mergeFactorsPairwise (tail a) b
        GT -> (head b) : mergeFactorsPairwise a (tail b)
        EQ -> (an, max am bm) : mergeFactorsPairwise (tail a) (tail b)

wideLCM :: (Integral a) => [a] -> a
wideLCM nums = multiProduct $ foldl mergeFactorsPairwise [] $ map multiFactors $ nums

Answer 2

Here is the solution using C Lang

#include<stdio.h>
    int main(){
    int a,b,lcm=1,small,gcd=1,done=0,i,j,large=1,div=0;
    printf("Enter range\n");
    printf("From:");
    scanf("%d",&a);
    printf("To:");
    scanf("%d",&b);
    int n=b-a+1;
    int num[30];
    for(i=0;i<n;i++){
        num[i]=a+i;
    }
    //Finds LCM
    while(!done){
        for(i=0;i<n;i++){
            if(num[i]==1){
                done=1;continue;
            }
            done=0;
            break;
        }
        if(done){
            continue;
        }
        done=0;
        large=1;
        for(i=0;i<n;i++){
            if(num[i]>large){
                large=num[i];
            }
        }
        div=0;
        for(i=2;i<=large;i++){
            for(j=0;j<n;j++){
                if(num[j]%i==0){
                    num[j]/=i;div=1;
                }
                continue;
            }
            if(div){
                lcm*=i;div=0;break;
            }
        }
    }
    done=0;
    //Finds GCD
    while(!done){
        small=num[0];
        for(i=0;i<n;i++){
            if(num[i]<small){
                small=num[i];
            }
        }
        div=0;
        for(i=2;i<=small;i++){
            for(j=0;j<n;j++){
                if(num[j]%i==0){
                    div=1;continue;
                }
                div=0;break;
            }
            if(div){
                for(j=0;j<n;j++){
                    num[j]/=i;
                }
                gcd*=i;div=0;break;
            }
        }
        if(i==small+1){
            done=1;
        }
    }
    printf("LCM = %d\n",lcm);
    printf("GCD = %d\n",gcd);
    return 0;
}