Prime factor of 300 000 000 000?

Question

I need to find out the prime factors of over 300 billion. I have a function that is adding to the list of them...very slowly! It has been running for about an hour now and i

Answer 1

Here's some Haskell goodness for you guys :)

primeFactors n = factor n primes
  where factor n (p:ps) | p*p > n = [n]
                        | n `mod` p /= 0 = factor n ps
                        | otherwise = p : factor (n `div` p) (p:ps)
        primes = 2 : filter ((==1) . length . primeFactors) [3,5..]

Took it about .5 seconds to find them, so I'd call that a success.