Prime factorization - list

Question

I am trying to implement a function primeFac() that takes as input a positive integer n and returns a list containing all the numbers in the prime

Answer 1

Here is my version of factorization by trial division, which incorporates the optimization of dividing only by two and the odd integers proposed by Daniel Fischer:

def factors(n):
    f, fs = 3, []
    while n % 2 == 0:
        fs.append(2)
        n /= 2
    while f * f <= n:
        while n % f == 0:
            fs.append(f)
            n /= f
        f += 2
    if n > 1: fs.append(n)
    return fs

An improvement on trial division by two and the odd numbers is wheel factorization, which uses a cyclic set of gaps between potential primes to greatly reduce the number of trial divisions. Here we use a 2,3,5-wheel:

def factors(n):
    gaps = [1,2,2,4,2,4,2,4,6,2,6]
    length, cycle = 11, 3
    f, fs, nxt = 2, [], 0
    while f * f <= n:
        while n % f == 0:
            fs.append(f)
            n /= f
        f += gaps[nxt]
        nxt += 1
        if nxt == length:
            nxt = cycle
    if n > 1: fs.append(n)
    return fs

Thus, print factors(13290059) will output [3119, 4261]. Factoring wheels have the same O(sqrt(n)) time complexity as normal trial division, but will be two or three times faster in practice.

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