greatest common factor

These functions determine the greatest common factor or least common multiple of a set of numbers. gcf() and lcm() take two numbers as arguments, and multigcf() and multilcm() will take any amount. EDIT: fixed a bug in multigcf().

sub gcf {
  my ($x, $y) = @_;
  ($x, $y) = ($y, $x % $y) while $y;
  return $x;
}

sub lcm {
  return($_[0] * $_[1] / gcf($_[0], $_[1]));
}

sub multigcf {
  my $x = shift;
  $x = gcf($x, shift) while @_;
  return $x;
}

sub multilcm {
  my $x = shift;
  $x = lcm($x, shift) while @_;
  return $x;
}
[download]

Comment on greatest common factor Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: greatest common factor by zeno (Friar) on Feb 07, 2001 at 16:16 UTC
Very elegantly done. BTW, there's a typo in the sub multigcf: gcd should be gcf! Otherwise, a very nice offering. -zeno `sub multigcf { my $x = shift; $x = gcd($x, shift) while @_; #should be gcf! return $x; }` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: greatest common factor by Anonymous Monk on Mar 17, 2017 at 06:23 UTC
its greatest common divisor , hence gcd	[reply]
Re: greatest common factor by TheAmigo (Initiate) on Apr 16, 2015 at 19:51 UTC
I found this function and it seemed reasonable, but some of my users reported that I was somtimes returning the wrong sign. Turns out that the function above has inconsistent behavior on negative numbers: `gcf(-5, 5) = 5 gcf(5, -5) = -5` [download] when they should really both be 5. 14 years late, but here's a fix. I changed my code so that `gcf()` ends with `return abs $x;`	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: greatest common factor by Anonymous Monk on Jun 12, 2014 at 08:03 UTC
the copy/paste i needed many thanks ^_^	[reply]

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