c++ - Fastest way to get the integer part of sqrt(n)?

Question

As we know if n is not a perfect square, then sqrt(n) would not be an integer. Since I need only the integer part, I feel that calling sqrt(n) wouldn't be that fast, as it takes time to calculate the fractional part also.

So my question is,

Can we get only the integer part of sqrt(n) without calculating the actual value of sqrt(n)? The algorithm should be faster than sqrt(n) (defined in <math.h> or <cmath>)?

If possible, you can write the code in asm block also.

Answer 1

I would try the Fast Inverse Square Root trick.

It's a way to get a very good approximation of 1/sqrt(n) without any branch, based on some bit-twiddling so not portable (notably between 32-bits and 64-bits platforms).

Once you get it, you just need to inverse the result, and takes the integer part.

There might be faster tricks, of course, since this one is a bit of a round about.

EDIT: let's do it!

First a little helper:

// benchmark.h
#include <sys/time.h>

template <typename Func>
double benchmark(Func f, size_t iterations)
{
  f();

  timeval a, b;
  gettimeofday(&a, 0);
  for (; iterations --> 0;)
  {
    f();
  }
  gettimeofday(&b, 0);
  return (b.tv_sec * (unsigned int)1e6 + b.tv_usec) -
         (a.tv_sec * (unsigned int)1e6 + a.tv_usec);
}

Then the main body:

#include <iostream>

#include <cmath>

#include "benchmark.h"

class Sqrt
{
public:
  Sqrt(int n): _number(n) {}

  int operator()() const
  {
    double d = _number;
    return static_cast<int>(std::sqrt(d) + 0.5);
  }

private:
  int _number;
};

// http://www.codecodex.com/wiki/Calculate_an_integer_square_root
class IntSqrt
{
public:
  IntSqrt(int n): _number(n) {}

  int operator()() const 
  {
    int remainder = _number;
    if (remainder < 0) { return 0; }

    int place = 1 <<(sizeof(int)*8 -2);

    while (place > remainder) { place /= 4; }

    int root = 0;
    while (place)
    {
      if (remainder >= root + place)
      {
        remainder -= root + place;
        root += place*2;
      }
      root /= 2;
      place /= 4;
    }
    return root;
  }

private:
  int _number;
};

// http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_inverse_square_root
class FastSqrt
{
public:
  FastSqrt(int n): _number(n) {}

  int operator()() const
  {
    float number = _number;

    float x2 = number * 0.5F;
    float y = number;
    long i = *(long*)&y;
    //i = (long)0x5fe6ec85e7de30da - (i >> 1);
    i = 0x5f3759df - (i >> 1);
    y = *(float*)&i;

    y = y * (1.5F - (x2*y*y));
    y = y * (1.5F - (x2*y*y)); // let's be precise

    return static_cast<int>(1/y + 0.5f);
  }

private:
  int _number;
};


int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
  if (argc != 3) {
    std::cerr << "Usage: %prog integer iterations
";
    return 1;
  }

  int n = atoi(argv[1]);
  int it = atoi(argv[2]);

  assert(Sqrt(n)() == IntSqrt(n)() &&
          Sqrt(n)() == FastSqrt(n)() && "Different Roots!");
  std::cout << "sqrt(" << n << ") = " << Sqrt(n)() << "
";

  double time = benchmark(Sqrt(n), it);
  double intTime = benchmark(IntSqrt(n), it);
  double fastTime = benchmark(FastSqrt(n), it);

  std::cout << "Number iterations: " << it << "
"
               "Sqrt computation : " << time << "
"
               "Int computation  : " << intTime << "
"
               "Fast computation : " << fastTime << "
";

  return 0;
}

And the results:

sqrt(82) = 9
Number iterations: 4096
Sqrt computation : 56
Int computation  : 217
Fast computation : 119

// Note had to tweak the program here as Int here returns -1 :/
sqrt(2147483647) = 46341 // real answer sqrt(2 147 483 647) = 46 340.95
Number iterations: 4096
Sqrt computation : 57
Int computation  : 313
Fast computation : 119

Where as expected the Fast computation performs much better than the Int computation.

Oh, and by the way, sqrt is faster :)