Finding the exponent of n = 2**x using bitwise operations [logarithm in base 2 of n]
"language agnostic" and worrying about performance are pretty much incompatible concepts.
Most modern processors have a CLZ instruction, "count leading zeros". In GCC you can get to it with __builtin_clz(x) (which also produces reasonable, if not the fastest, code for targets that lack clz). Note that this CLZ is undefined for zero, so you'll need an extra branch to catch that case if it matters in your application.
In CELT ( http://celt-codec.org ) the branchless CLZ we use for compliers lacking a CLZ was written by Timothy B. Terriberry:
int ilog(uint32 _v){
int ret;
int m;
ret=!!_v;
m=!!(_v&0xFFFF0000)<<4;
_v>>=m;
ret|=m;
m=!!(_v&0xFF00)<<3;
_v>>=m;
ret|=m;
m=!!(_v&0xF0)<<2;
_v>>=m;
ret|=m;
m=!!(_v&0xC)<<1;
_v>>=m;
ret|=m;
ret+=!!(_v&0x2);
return ret;
}
(The comments indicate that this was found to be faster than a branching version and a lookup table based version)
But if performance is that critical you probably shouldn't be implementing this part of your code in python.
Short answer
As far as python is concerned:
- The fastest method of all to find the exponent of 2**x is by looking up in a dictionary whose hashes are the powers of 2 (see "hashlookup" in the code)
- The fastest bitwise method is the one called "unrolled_bitwise".
- Both previous methods have well-defined (but extensible) upper limits. The fastest method without hard-coded upper limits (which scales up as far as python can handle numbers) is "log_e".
Preliminary notes
- All speed measurements below have been obtained via
timeit.Timer.repeat(testn, cycles)wheretestnwas set to 3 andcycleswas automatically adjusted by the script to obtain times in the range of seconds (note: there was a bug in this auto-adjusting mechanism that has been fixed on 18/02/2010). - Not all methods can scale, this is why I did not test all functions for the various powers of 2
- I did not manage to get some of the proposed methods to work (the function returns a wrong result). I did not yet have tiem to do a step-by-step debugging session: I included the code (commented) just in case somebody spots the mistake by inspection (or want to perform the debug themselves)
Results
func(25)**
hashlookup: 0.13s 100%
lookup: 0.15s 109%
stringcount: 0.29s 220%
unrolled_bitwise: 0.36s 272%
log_e: 0.60s 450%
bitcounter: 0.64s 479%
log_2: 0.69s 515%
ilog: 0.81s 609%
bitwise: 1.10s 821%
olgn: 1.42s 1065%
func(231)**
hashlookup: 0.11s 100%
unrolled_bitwise: 0.26s 229%
log_e: 0.30s 268%
stringcount: 0.30s 270%
log_2: 0.34s 301%
ilog: 0.41s 363%
bitwise: 0.87s 778%
olgn: 1.02s 912%
bitcounter: 1.42s 1264%
func(2128)**
hashlookup: 0.01s 100%
stringcount: 0.03s 264%
log_e: 0.04s 315%
log_2: 0.04s 383%
olgn: 0.18s 1585%
bitcounter: 1.41s 12393%
func(21024)**
log_e: 0.00s 100%
log_2: 0.01s 118%
stringcount: 0.02s 354%
olgn: 0.03s 707%
bitcounter: 1.73s 37695%
Code
import math, sys
def stringcount(v):
"""mac"""
return len(bin(v)) - 3
def log_2(v):
"""mac"""
return int(round(math.log(v, 2), 0)) # 2**101 generates 100.999999999
def log_e(v):
"""bp on mac"""
return int(round(math.log(v)/0.69314718055994529, 0)) # 0.69 == log(2)
def bitcounter(v):
"""John Y on mac"""
r = 0
while v > 1 :
v >>= 1
r += 1
return r
def olgn(n) :
"""outis"""
if n < 1:
return -1
low = 0
high = sys.getsizeof(n)*8 # not the best upper-bound guesstimate, but...
while True:
mid = (low+high)//2
i = n >> mid
if i == 1:
return mid
if i == 0:
high = mid-1
else:
low = mid+1
def hashlookup(v):
"""mac on brone -- limit: v < 2**131"""
# def prepareTable(max_log2=130) :
# hash_table = {}
# for p in range(1, max_log2) :
# hash_table[2**p] = p
# return hash_table
global hash_table
return hash_table[v]
def lookup(v):
"""brone -- limit: v < 2**11"""
# def prepareTable(max_log2=10) :
# log2s_table=[0]*((1<<max_log2)+1)
# for i in range(max_log2+1):
# log2s_table[1<<i]=i
# return tuple(log2s_table)
global log2s_table
return log2s_table[v]
def bitwise(v):
"""Mark Byers -- limit: v < 2**32"""
b = (0x2, 0xC, 0xF0, 0xFF00, 0xFFFF0000)
S = (1, 2, 4, 8, 16)
r = 0
for i in range(4, -1, -1) :
if (v & b[i]) :
v >>= S[i];
r |= S[i];
return r
def unrolled_bitwise(v):
"""x4u on Mark Byers -- limit: v < 2**33"""
r = 0;
if v > 0xffff :
v >>= 16
r = 16;
if v > 0x00ff :
v >>= 8
r += 8;
if v > 0x000f :
v >>= 4
r += 4;
if v > 0x0003 :
v >>= 2
r += 2;
return r + (v >> 1)
def ilog(v):
"""Gregory Maxwell - (Original code: B. Terriberry) -- limit: v < 2**32"""
ret = 1
m = (not not v & 0xFFFF0000) << 4;
v >>= m;
ret |= m;
m = (not not v & 0xFF00) << 3;
v >>= m;
ret |= m;
m = (not not v & 0xF0) << 2;
v >>= m;
ret |= m;
m = (not not v & 0xC) << 1;
v >>= m;
ret |= m;
ret += (not not v & 0x2);
return ret - 1;
# following table is equal to "return hashlookup.prepareTable()"
hash_table = {...} # numbers have been cut out to avoid cluttering the post
# following table is equal to "return lookup.prepareTable()" - cached for speed
log2s_table = (...) # numbers have been cut out to avoid cluttering the post
There is a page with a lot of these types of tricks and hacks. It's written for C, but many of them should work in Python too (though the performance will obviously be different). The bit you want is here and onwards.
You could try this for example:
register unsigned int r = 0; // result of log2(v) will go here
for (i = 4; i >= 0; i--) // unroll for speed...
{
if (v & b[i])
{
v >>= S[i];
r |= S[i];
}
}
That looks like it could be converted to Python quite easily.