leetcode 342. Power of Four

Description

Given an integer (signed 32 bits), write a function to check whether it is a power of 4.

Example:
Given num = 16, return true. Given num = 5, return false.

Follow up: Could you solve it without loops/recursion?

Mysolution

最low的/万能的方式的如下

class Solution {
public:
    bool isPowerOfFour(int num) {
        if(num==0) return 0;
        while(num%4==0) num/=4;
        return num==1;
    }
};

注意到4=2**2, 已知power of 2可以用n&(n-1)的trick, power of 4就是在of 2 的基础上, 加入1存在位置的约束! 但是我并没有想出来怎么利用这个约束.. 技巧具体查看下面的discuss

Discuss

• bit trick

public class Solution {
    public boolean isPowerOfFour(int num) {
        return (num > 0) && ((num & (num - 1)) == 0) && ((num & 0x55555555) == num);
    }
}

(num & 0x55555555) == num

0x5 = ...0101
0x55 = ...0101,0101
也就是5可以划分为奇偶奇偶... 通过&运算可以将偶数位置元素保留, 奇数位置抹掉(变为0),如果值不变, 就是约束了位置,如果值变化了,就是没满足这个约束.

• math method

class Solution {
public:
    bool isPowerOfFour(int num) {
        return ((num-1)&num)==0 && (num-1)%3==0;
    }
};

4^x-1=(2^x-1)(2^x+1). And 2^x mod 3 is not 0. So either 2^x-1 or 2^x +1 must be 0.

这种方式其实更难想到.但是数学证明很巧妙.

Reference

• leetcode 342