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I came across this issue in the problem titled: Another Prime Problem. Here's my solution with JavaScript which passed test case-1, but for other test cases it led to timeout.

function processData(input) {
       input=input.split('\n');
       input.shift();
       for(var i=0;i<input.length;i++){
          values(input[i]);
       }
    } 
    function values(num){
       var sum=0;
       num=num.split(' ');
       for(var i=num[0];i<=num[1];i++){
           for(var j=2;j<=i;j++){
               if(i%j==0 && isprime(j)){
                   sum+=j;
               }
           }
       }
       console.log(sum)
    }
    function isprime(val){
       let flag=1;
       for(var i=2;i<val;i++){
            if(val%i==0){
               flag=0;
            }
       }
       if(flag==1){
          return true;
       }
       else{
           return false;
       }
    } 

What's the issue in this code that leads to timeout?

The above program has a very bad time complexity, I guess due to multiple loops and functions, but not being much experienced with algorithms this is only solution I can think of right now. Any help would be appreciated.

Additional info:

Problem statement in a nutshell: find the sum of prime factors of each number in the range [X,Y].

Input Format: The first line contains T denoting the total number of testcases. First line of each testcase contains two integers X and Y.

Constraints: 1 ≤ T ≤ 10000 2 ≤ X ≤ Y ≤ 10^5

Output Format: Sum of prime factors of each number in the range [X, Y].

Currently my code calculates the sum of primes (i know this cause I'm able to pass first test case) but the remainder of test cases lead to Timeout.

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3
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ When trying to check 9999899999, what information is to be expected from divisors beyond 99999? \$\endgroup\$
    – greybeard
    May 4, 2020 at 15:01
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ Welcome to CodeReview@SE. \$\endgroup\$
    – greybeard
    May 4, 2020 at 15:44
  • \$\begingroup\$ @greybeard edited.. \$\endgroup\$ May 4, 2020 at 15:45

1 Answer 1

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An immediate problem is that is_prime() is expensive, and you call it too many times. Prepare a sufficiently large list of primes in advance (and use a sieve for that).

This will give you a certain performance boost, but I am positive it will not be enough to avoid timeouts. The real problem is with the algorithm: you try to factorize the numbers, and the factorization is hard.

Instead of bruteforcing, do the math homework: how many numbers in the range have a prime \$p\$ as a factor? Hint: if there are N of them, they'd contribute N * p to the answer.

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