Sieve of Eratosthenes - Finding Primes Python

Question

Just to clarify, this is not a homework problem :)

I wanted to find primes for a math application I am building & came across Sieve of Eratosthenes approach.

Answer 1

Removing from the beginning of an array (list) requires moving all of the items after it down. That means that removing every element from a list in this way starting from the front is an O(n^2) operation.

You can do this much more efficiently with sets:

def primes_sieve(limit):
    limitn = limit+1
    not_prime = set()
    primes = []

    for i in range(2, limitn):
        if i in not_prime:
            continue

        for f in range(i*2, limitn, i):
            not_prime.add(f)

        primes.append(i)

    return primes

print primes_sieve(1000000)

... or alternatively, avoid having to rearrange the list:

def primes_sieve(limit):
    limitn = limit+1
    not_prime = [False] * limitn
    primes = []

    for i in range(2, limitn):
        if not_prime[i]:
            continue
        for f in xrange(i*2, limitn, i):
            not_prime[f] = True

        primes.append(i)

    return primes