[Tutor] Strange modulus problem

[Andrew Wilkins]

I think what I have to say is right, if I'm not someone please correct me :)

> I'm working on a bit of code to determine all of the factors up to and
> including a number entered by the user. Here's my code:
>
> #!/usr/bin/python
>
> import string
>
> num=raw_input("Enter a number: ")
> num_int=string.atoi(num)
>
> factor_range= range(1, num_int + 1)
>
> for item in factor_range:
>     if num_int % item > 0:
>         factor_range.remove(item)

"for" goes through the indices 0..len(factor_range)
As you remove each item it decreases the size of factor_range, and the index
that for points to next will contain something else.

Example:

>>> test_range=range(10)
>>> for i in test_range:
           print i,test_range
           test_range.remove(i)

0 [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]
2 [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]
4 [1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]
6 [1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]
8 [1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9]

So as you can see in the 2nd iteration it is pointing to index 1 as it
should be, but this now points to "2".

So to fix this you could do it one of these (untested) ways:

1) Preserve what you've done already

factor_range=range(1,num_int+1)
loop_range=factor_range[:] #copy contents

for item in loop_range:
     if num_int % item > 0:
         loop_range.remove(item)

2) Do it the way I prefer to do it :)

factors=[]
for i in range(1,num_int+1):
   if num_int%i==0: factors.append(i)

...I'm sure there's still more ways.

> Why doesn't '5' fail the if test and get removed? If I modify the code so
> that it prints the modulus of each item, 5 correctly evalutates to '1'.
What
> gives?

>>> fr=range(1,7)
>>> for item in fr:
           print item,fr
           if 6%item>0: fr.remove(item)

1 [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
2 [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
3 [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
4 [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
6 [1, 2, 3, 5, 6]

It's not even looking at 5 :)
It gets to "4" and removes it, thus bringing the next index to point to "6".

HTH
Andrew


>
> - Chris
>
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