Is there a simple algorithm that can determine if X is prime?

Question

I have been trying to work my way through Project Euler, and have noticed a handful of problems ask for you to determine a prime number as part of it.

1. I kno

Answer 1

Keeping in mind the following facts (from MathsChallenge.net):

• All primes except 2 are odd.
• All primes greater than 3 can be written in the form 6k - 1 or 6k + 1.
• You don't need to check past the square root of n

Here's the C++ function I use for relatively small n:

bool isPrime(unsigned long n)
{
    if (n == 1) return false; // 1 is not prime
    if (n < 4) return true; // 2 and 3 are both prime
    if ((n % 2) == 0) return false; // exclude even numbers
    if (n < 9) return true; //we have already excluded 4, 6, and 8.
    if ((n % 3) == 0) return false; // exclude remaining multiples of 3

    unsigned long r = floor( sqrt(n) );
    unsigned long f = 5;
    while (f <= r)
    {
        if ((n % f) == 0)  return false;
        if ((n % (f + 2)) == 0) return false;
        f = f + 6;
    }
    return true; // (in all other cases)
}

You could probably think of more optimizations of your own.