How to resolve the algorithm Factorial step by step in the Mathematica / Wolfram Language programming language
How to resolve the algorithm Factorial step by step in the Mathematica / Wolfram Language programming language
Table of Contents
Problem Statement
Write a function to return the factorial of a number. Solutions can be iterative or recursive. Support for trapping negative n errors is optional.
Let's start with the solution:
Step by Step solution about How to resolve the algorithm Factorial step by step in the Mathematica / Wolfram Language programming language
The code provided is a definition of the factorial function in the Wolfram programming language. The factorial of a non-negative integer $n$ is the product of all positive integers less than or equal to $n$. For example, $5! = 5 \times 4 \times 3 \times 2 \times 1 = 120$.
The first definition uses recursion to compute the factorial. The function factorial
takes a single argument, n
, which is assumed to be a non-negative integer. The function returns $n!$ if $n > 0$, and $1$ if $n = 0$. The recursive call to factorial
in the first line of the definition computes the factorial of $n-1$, and then multiplies this value by $n$ to get $n!$.
The second definition uses a Block
construct to create a local variable result
that is initialized to $1$. The For
loop then iterates over the integers from $1$ to $n$, and in each iteration, the value of result
is multiplied by the current value of i
. After the loop has finished, the value of result
is returned as the factorial of $n$.
The third definition uses the Times @@ Table
construct to compute the factorial of $n$. The Table
function generates a list of the integers from $1$ to $n$, and the Times @@
construct multiplies all of the elements in the list together. The result of this multiplication is the factorial of $n$.
All three of these definitions of the factorial function are correct, but the second definition is probably the most efficient for large values of $n$.
Source code in the wolfram programming language
factorial[n_Integer] := n*factorial[n-1]
factorial[0] = 1
factorial[n_Integer] :=
Block[{i, result = 1}, For[i = 1, i <= n, ++i, result *= i]; result]
factorial[n_Integer] := Block[{i}, Times @@ Table[i, {i, n}]]
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