Mapping two integers to one, in a unique and deterministic way

Question

Imagine two positive integers A and B. I want to combine these two into a single integer C.

There can be no other integers D and E which combine to C. So combining

Answer 1

Here is an extension of @DoctorJ 's code to unbounded integers based on the method given by @nawfal. It can encode and decode. It works with normal arrays and numpy arrays.

#!/usr/bin/env python
from numbers import Integral    

def tuple_to_int(tup):
    """:Return: the unique non-negative integer encoding of a tuple of non-negative integers."""
    if len(tup) == 0:  # normally do if not tup, but doesn't work with np
        raise ValueError('Cannot encode empty tuple')
    if len(tup) == 1:
        x = tup[0]
        if not isinstance(x, Integral):
            raise ValueError('Can only encode integers')
        return x
    elif len(tup) == 2:
        # print("len=2")
        x, y = tuple_to_int(tup[0:1]), tuple_to_int(tup[1:2])  # Just to validate x and y

        X = 2 * x if x >= 0 else -2 * x - 1  # map x to positive integers
        Y = 2 * y if y >= 0 else -2 * y - 1  # map y to positive integers
        Z = (X * X + X + Y) if X >= Y else (X + Y * Y)  # encode

        # Map evens onto positives
        if (x >= 0 and y >= 0):
            return Z // 2
        elif (x < 0 and y >= 0 and X >= Y):
            return Z // 2
        elif (x < 0 and y < 0 and X < Y):
            return Z // 2
        # Map odds onto negative
        else:
            return (-Z - 1) // 2
    else:
        return tuple_to_int((tuple_to_int(tup[:2]),) + tuple(tup[2:]))  # ***speed up tuple(tup[2:])?***


def int_to_tuple(num, size=2):
    """:Return: the unique tuple of length `size` that encodes to `num`."""
    if not isinstance(num, Integral):
        raise ValueError('Can only encode integers (got {})'.format(num))
    if not isinstance(size, Integral) or size < 1:
        raise ValueError('Tuple is the wrong size ({})'.format(size))
    if size == 1:
        return (num,)
    elif size == 2:

        # Mapping onto positive integers
        Z = -2 * num - 1 if num < 0 else 2 * num

        # Reversing Pairing
        s = isqrt(Z)
        if Z - s * s < s:
            X, Y = Z - s * s, s
        else:
            X, Y = s, Z - s * s - s

        # Undoing mappint to positive integers
        x = (X + 1) // -2 if X % 2 else X // 2  # True if X not divisible by 2
        y = (Y + 1) // -2 if Y % 2 else Y // 2  # True if Y not divisible by 2

        return x, y

    else:
        x, y = int_to_tuple(num, 2)
        return int_to_tuple(x, size - 1) + (y,)


def isqrt(n):
    """":Return: the largest integer x for which x * x does not exceed n."""
    # Newton's method, via http://stackoverflow.com/a/15391420
    x = n
    y = (x + 1) // 2
    while y < x:
        x = y
        y = (x + n // x) // 2
    return x