Calculate Nth root with integer arithmetic

Question

There are a couple of ways to find integer square roots using only integer arithmetic. For example this one. It makes for interesting reading and also a very interesting the

Answer 1

One easy solution is to use the binary search.

Assume we are finding nth root of x.

Function GetRange(x,n):
    y=1
    While y^n < x:
        y*2
    return (y/2,y)

Function BinSearch(a,b,x,):
    if a == b+1:
        if x-a^n < b^n - x:
           return a
        else:
           return b
    c = (a+b)/2
    if n< c^n:
        return BinSearch(a,c,x,n)
    else:
        return BinSearch(c,b,x,n)

a,b = GetRange(x,n)
print BinSearch(a,b,x,n)

===Faster Version===

Function BinSearch(a,b,x,):
    w1 = x-a^n
    w2 = b^n - x
    if a <= b+1:
        if w1 < w2:
           return a
        else:
           return b
    c = (w2*a+w1*b)/(w1+w2)
    if n< c^n:
        return BinSearch(a,c,x,n)
    else:
        return BinSearch(c,b,x,n)