De Bruijn algorithm binary digit count 64bits C#

Question

Im using the \"De Bruijn\" Algorithm to discover the number of digits in binary that a big number (up to 64bits) has.

For example:

• 1022 has 10 digits i

Answer 1

Edit: This solution is not recommanded as it requires branching for Zero.

After reading Niklas B's answer I spent a few hours on researching this, and realize all magic multiplicator has to be in the last nth in order to suit for 64-elements lookup table (I don't have the necessary knowledge to explain why).

So I used exactly the same generator mentioned by that answer to find the last sequence, here is the C# code:

// used generator from http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/De+Bruijn+Sequence+Generator
static readonly byte[] DeBruijnMSB64table = new byte[]
{
    0 , 47, 1 , 56, 48, 27, 2 , 60,
    57, 49, 41, 37, 28, 16, 3 , 61,
    54, 58, 35, 52, 50, 42, 21, 44,
    38, 32, 29, 23, 17, 11, 4 , 62,
    46, 55, 26, 59, 40, 36, 15, 53,
    34, 51, 20, 43, 31, 22, 10, 45,
    25, 39, 14, 33, 19, 30, 9 , 24,
    13, 18, 8 , 12, 7 , 6 , 5 , 63,
};
// the cyclc number has to be in the last 16th of all possible values
// any beyond the 62914560th(0x03C0_0000) should work for this purpose
const ulong DeBruijnMSB64multi = 0x03F79D71B4CB0A89uL; // the last one
public static byte GetMostSignificantBit(this ulong value)
{
    value |= value >> 1;
    value |= value >> 2;
    value |= value >> 4;
    value |= value >> 8;
    value |= value >> 16;
    value |= value >> 32;

    return DeBruijnMSB64table[value * DeBruijnMSB64multi >> 58];
}

Answer 2

You should check R..'s answer and his resource again. The question that he responded to was how to find the log2 for powers of two.

The bit twiddling website says that the simple multiplication + shift only works "If you know that v is a power of 2". Otherwise you need to round up to the next power of two first:

static readonly int[] bitPatternToLog2 = new int[64] { 
    0, // change to 1 if you want bitSize(0) = 1
    1,  2, 53,  3,  7, 54, 27, 4, 38, 41,  8, 34, 55, 48, 28,
    62,  5, 39, 46, 44, 42, 22,  9, 24, 35, 59, 56, 49, 18, 29, 11,
    63, 52,  6, 26, 37, 40, 33, 47, 61, 45, 43, 21, 23, 58, 17, 10,
    51, 25, 36, 32, 60, 20, 57, 16, 50, 31, 19, 15, 30, 14, 13, 12
}; // table taken from http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/De+Bruijn+Sequence+Generator
static readonly ulong multiplicator = 0x022fdd63cc95386dUL;

public static int bitSize(ulong v) {
    v |= v >> 1;
    v |= v >> 2;
    v |= v >> 4;
    v |= v >> 8;
    v |= v >> 16;
    v |= v >> 32;
    // at this point you could also use popcount to find the number of set bits.
    // That might well be faster than a lookup table because you prevent a 
    // potential cache miss
    if (v == (ulong)-1) return 64;
    v++;
    return MultiplyDeBruijnBitPosition2[(ulong)(v * multiplicator) >> 58];
}

Here is a version with a larger lookup table that avoids the branch and one addition. I found the magic number using random search.

static readonly int[] bitPatternToLog2 = new int[128] {
    0, // change to 1 if you want bitSize(0) = 1
    48, -1, -1, 31, -1, 15, 51, -1, 63, 5, -1, -1, -1, 19, -1, 
    23, 28, -1, -1, -1, 40, 36, 46, -1, 13, -1, -1, -1, 34, -1, 58,
    -1, 60, 2, 43, 55, -1, -1, -1, 50, 62, 4, -1, 18, 27, -1, 39, 
    45, -1, -1, 33, 57, -1, 1, 54, -1, 49, -1, 17, -1, -1, 32, -1,
    53, -1, 16, -1, -1, 52, -1, -1, -1, 64, 6, 7, 8, -1, 9, -1, 
    -1, -1, 20, 10, -1, -1, 24, -1, 29, -1, -1, 21, -1, 11, -1, -1,
    41, -1, 25, 37, -1, 47, -1, 30, 14, -1, -1, -1, -1, 22, -1, -1,
    35, 12, -1, -1, -1, 59, 42, -1, -1, 61, 3, 26, 38, 44, -1, 56
};
static readonly ulong multiplicator = 0x6c04f118e9966f6bUL;

public static int bitSize(ulong v) {
    v |= v >> 1;
    v |= v >> 2;
    v |= v >> 4;
    v |= v >> 8;
    v |= v >> 16;
    v |= v >> 32;
    return bitPatternToLog2[(ulong)(v * multiplicator) >> 57];
}

You should definitely check other tricks to compute the log2 and consider using the MSR assembly instruction if you are on x86(_64). It gives you the index of the most significant set bit, which is exactly what you need.

Answer 3

When I looked into this a while back for 32 bits, the DeBruijn sequence method was by far the fastest. See https://stackoverflow.com/a/10150991/56778

What you could do for 64 bits is split the number into two 32-bit values. If the high 32 bits is non-zero, then run the DeBruijn calculation on it, and then add 32. If the high 32 bits is zero, then run the DeBruijn calculation on the low 32 bits.

Something like this:

int NumBits64(ulong val)
{
    if (val > 0x00000000FFFFFFFFul)
    {
        // Value is greater than largest 32 bit number,
        // so calculate the number of bits in the top half
        // and add 32.
        return 32 + GetLog2_DeBruijn((int)(val >> 32));
    }
    // Number is no more than 32 bits,
    // so calculate number of bits in the bottom half.
    return GetLog2_DeBruijn((int)(val & 0xFFFFFFFF));
}

int GetLog2_DeBruijn(int val)
{
    uint32 v = (uint32)val;
    int r;      // result goes here

    static const int MultiplyDeBruijnBitPosition[32] = 
    {
        0, 9, 1, 10, 13, 21, 2, 29, 11, 14, 16, 18, 22, 25, 3, 30,
        8, 12, 20, 28, 15, 17, 24, 7, 19, 27, 23, 6, 26, 5, 4, 31
    };

    v |= v >> 1; // first round down to one less than a power of 2 
    v |= v >> 2;
    v |= v >> 4;
    v |= v >> 8;
    v |= v >> 16;

    r = MultiplyDeBruijnBitPosition[(uint32_t)(v * 0x07C4ACDDU) >> 27];
    return r;
}

Answer 4

After perusing various bit-twiddling info, this is how I'd do it... don't know how this stacks up next to DeBruijn, but should be considerably faster than using powers.

ulong NumBits64(ulong x)
{
    return (Ones64(Msb64(x) - 1ul) + 1ul);
}

ulong Msb64(ulong x)
{  
    //http://aggregate.org/MAGIC/
    x |= (x >> 1);
    x |= (x >> 2);
    x |= (x >> 4);
    x |= (x >> 8);
    x |= (x >> 16);
    x |= (x >> 32);
    return(x & ~(x >> 1));
}

ulong Ones64(ulong x)
{
    //https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/SIMD+and+SWAR+Techniques
    const ulong k1 = 0x5555555555555555ul;
    const ulong k2 = 0x3333333333333333ul;
    const ulong k4 = 0x0f0f0f0f0f0f0f0ful;
    x = x - ((x >> 1) & k1);
    x = (x & k2) + ((x >> 2) & k2);
    x = (x + (x >> 4)) & k4;
    x = (x * 0x0101010101010101ul) >> 56;
    return x;
}