Cadbury problem solution in Python

Question

Problem Statement

In a School, Chocolate bars have to be distributed to children waiting in a queue. Each Chocolate bar is rectangular in shape. Consider its side lengths are integer values.

The distribution procedure is as follows:-

If bar is not square in shape, then the largest possible square piece of Chocolate is broken and given to the first child in queue. If bar is square in shape, then complete bar is given to the first child in queue. Once a child receives his share of Chocolate, he leaves the queue. The remaining portion of the Chocolate bar is dealt in same fashion and the whole or a portion of it is given to the next child in the queue.

School has got a carton of Chocolate bars to be distributed among the children all over the School. The Chocolate bars in the carton are of different sizes. A bar of length i and breadth j is considered to be different from a bar of length j and breadth i. For every i such that \$M \le i \le N\$ and every j such that \$P\le j \le Q\$ (where M, N, P and Q are integers). Each Chocolate bar in carton is unique in length (i) and breath(j).

Given the values of M, N, P and Q (where M, N values are the ranges for length of Chocolate and P, Q values are the ranges for breadth of the chocolate). Find the number of children who will receive Chocolate from the carton.

Input Specification:

M, N, P, Q are of integer type (M, N values are the ranges for length of chocolate bar. P, Q values are the ranges for breadth of chocolate bar).

Output Specification:

Number of children who will receive Cadbury bar from the carton.

M = 5, N = 6, P = 3, Q=4 Here, i can be from 5 to 6 and j can be from 3 to 4. So the four bars will be in carton of sizes 5x3, 5x4, 6x3, 6x4.

First we choose a Cadbury bar of size 5x3 → first child would receive 3x3 portion ( remaining 2x3 portion ) → next child would receive 2x2 portion ( remaining 2x1 portion ) → now the remaining portion are 2 square pieces of (1x1), which can be given to 2 more children

So the Cadbury bar with the size of 5x3 can be distributed to 4 children.

Similarly we can find out number of children for rest of the combinations (i.e. 5x4, 6x3, 6x4) in the given range as follows

Can anyone suggest improvements?

m, n, p, q = raw_input().split(":")
ll = int
bb = int
count = 0

def cadbury(m, n, p, q):
    leng = [m, n]
    brd = [p, q]
    for l in leng:
        for b in brd:
            call(l, b)

def call(l, b):
    #print l,b
    global count
    area = l * b
    if l > b:
        bb = l
        rem = bb - b
        #print rem
        rem_part1 = rem
        #print rem_part1
        rem_part2 = b
        #print rem_part2
        l = rem_part1
        #print l
        b = rem_part2
        #print b
        if l != b:
            if (l==1) or (b==1):
                count += 1
                count += (l*b)
                #print count
                return
            else:
                count += 1
                #print count
                call(l, b)
        if l==b:
            count+=2
            #print count
            return
    elif b > l:
        ll = b
        #print ll
        rem = ll - l
        #print rem
        rem_part1 = rem
        #print rem_part1
        rem_part2 = l
        #print rem_part2
        l = rem_part1
        #print l
        b = rem_part2
        #print b
        if l != b:
            if (l==1) or (b==1):
                count += 1
                count += (l*b)
                #print count
                return
            else:
                count += 1
                #print count
                call(l, b)
        if l==b:
            count+=2
            #print count
            return
cadbury(int(m), int(n), int(p), int(q))
print count

Answer 1

I made it a little shorter: The logic is also little more simple.

def TotalCount(M,N,P,Q):
    count=0
    for l in range(M,N+1):
        for b in range(P,Q+1):
            count +=CountPerChocolateBar(l,b)
    return count

Your cadbury function stayed almost the same. But your version has a bug: if the difference between M and N, or P and Q is not one (in your example it was one), your code fails:

a = 7
b = 10
for element in [a,b]:
  print (element)

result is 7, 10 . NOT the expected 7,8,9,10

def CountPerChocolateBar(l,b):

  count = 0
  while True:
      longerr=max(l,b)
      shorterr=min(l,b)
      count+=1
      diff=longer-shorter
      if diff==0:
        return count
      else :
        l=min(l,b)
        b=diff

Your call function can be simplified a little: you can handle l>b ,b>l without branches, because it doesn't matter which one is bigger. You count the difference, increase the count variable, and based on the difference you return the count number or calculate the new b and l values. When the difference is 0, the while loop ends with the return statement

while True:

    numbers=raw_input("Number: ")

    M=int(numbers.split()[0])
    N=int(numbers.split()[1])
    P=int(numbers.split()[2])
    Q=int(numbers.split()[3])
    tc=TotalCount(M,N,P,Q)

    print (tc)

You can test my solution with this little loop. :)

Answer 2

Why so many aliases?

    ll = b

    rem_part1 = rem

    rem_part2 = l

    l = rem_part1

Why do you continually assign x = y? Why don't you just keep each value in a single variable?

Why so many un-descriptive looking names?

ll = int
bb = int

Also to be underlined ll that is LETTER L LETTER L looks really similar to 11 in some fonts that is NUMBER ONE NUMBER ONE especially at small font-sizes making it even more confusing to read the code.

rem = bb - b

This name is misleading rem stands for remainder, that is the result of division: from Wikipedia

In arithmetic, the remainder is the integer "left over" after dividing one integer by another to produce an integer quotient (integer division).

Why is count global?

The count variable should be defined inside the function and returned out. While it does not really matter in such a small program, avoiding global variables is a good habit.

Answer 3

Style

Make your code more readable so that you can more easily reason about its logic.

1. Use names that have meaning (e.g. minimum_length instead of m)
2. Don't create needless aliases (e.g. for length in [minimum_length, maximum_length] instead of for l in leng)