Average of 3 long integers

Question

I have 3 very large signed integers.

long x = long.MaxValue;
long y = long.MaxValue - 1;
long z = long.MaxValue - 2;

I want to calculate th

Answer 1

Math

(x + y + z) / 3 = x/3 + y/3 + z/3

(a[1] + a[2] + .. + a[k]) / k = a[1]/k + a[2]/k + .. + a[k]/k

Code

long calculateAverage (long a [])
{
    double average = 0;

    foreach (long x in a)
        average += (Convert.ToDouble(x)/Convert.ToDouble(a.Length));

    return Convert.ToInt64(Math.Round(average));
}

long calculateAverage_Safe (long a [])
{
    double average = 0;
    double b = 0;

    foreach (long x in a)
    {
        b = (Convert.ToDouble(x)/Convert.ToDouble(a.Length));

        if (b >= (Convert.ToDouble(long.MaxValue)-average))
            throw new OverflowException ();

        average += b;
    }

    return Convert.ToInt64(Math.Round(average));
}

Answer 2

This function computes the result in two divisions. It should generalize nicely to other divisors and word sizes.

It works by computing the double-word addition result, then working out the division.

Int64 average(Int64 a, Int64 b, Int64 c) {
    // constants: 0x10000000000000000 div/mod 3
    const Int64 hdiv3 = UInt64(-3) / 3 + 1;
    const Int64 hmod3 = UInt64(-3) % 3;

    // compute the signed double-word addition result in hi:lo
    UInt64 lo = a; Int64 hi = a>=0 ? 0 : -1;
    lo += b; hi += b>=0 ? lo<b : -(lo>=UInt64(b));
    lo += c; hi += c>=0 ? lo<c : -(lo>=UInt64(c));

    // divide, do a correction when high/low modulos add up
    return hi>=0 ? lo/3 + hi*hdiv3 + (lo%3 + hi*hmod3)/3
                 : lo/3+1 + hi*hdiv3 + Int64(lo%3-3 + hi*hmod3)/3;
}

Answer 3

You can calculate the mean of numbers based on the differences between the numbers rather than using the sum.

Let's say x is the max, y is the median, z is the min (as you have). We will call them max, median and min.

Conditional checker added as per @UlugbekUmirov's comment:

long tmp = median + ((min - median) / 2);            //Average of min 2 values
if (median > 0) tmp = median + ((max - median) / 2); //Average of max 2 values
long mean;
if (min > 0) {
    mean = min + ((tmp - min) * (2.0 / 3)); //Average of all 3 values
} else if (median > 0) {
    mean = min;
    while (mean != tmp) {
        mean += 2;
        tmp--;
    }
} else if (max > 0) {
    mean = max;
    while (mean != tmp) {
        mean--;
        tmp += 2;
    }
} else {
    mean = max + ((tmp - max) * (2.0 / 3));
}

Answer 4

This code will work, but isn't that pretty.

It first divides all three values (it floors the values, so you 'lose' the remainder), and then divides the remainder:

long n = x / 3
         + y / 3
         + z / 3
         + ( x % 3
             + y % 3
             + z % 3
           ) / 3

Note that the above sample does not always work properly when having one or more negative values.

As discussed with Ulugbek, since the number of comments are exploding below, here is the current BEST solution for both positive and negative values.

Thanks to answers and comments of Ulugbek Umirov, James S, KevinZ, Marc van Leeuwen, gnasher729 this is the current solution:

static long CalculateAverage(long x, long y, long z)
{
    return (x % 3 + y % 3 + z % 3 + 6) / 3 - 2
            + x / 3 + y / 3 + z / 3;
}

static long CalculateAverage(params long[] arr)
{
    int count = arr.Length;
    return (arr.Sum(n => n % count) + count * (count - 1)) / count - (count - 1)
           + arr.Sum(n => n / count);
}

Answer 5

Patrick Hofman has posted a great solution. But if needed it can still be implemented in several other ways. Using the algorithm here I have another solution. If implemented carefully it may be faster than the multiple divisions in systems with slow hardware divisors. It can be further optimized by using divide by constants technique from hacker's delight

public class int128_t {
    private int H;
    private long L;

    public int128_t(int h, long l)
    {
        H = h;
        L = l;
    }

    public int128_t add(int128_t a)
    {
        int128_t s;
        s.L = L + a.L;
        s.H = H + a.H + (s.L < a.L);
        return b;
    }

    private int128_t rshift2()  // right shift 2
    {
        int128_t r;
        r.H = H >> 2;
        r.L = (L >> 2) | ((H & 0x03) << 62);
        return r;
    }

    public int128_t divideby3()
    {
        int128_t sum = {0, 0}, num = new int128_t(H, L);
        while (num.H || num.L > 3)
        {
            int128_t n_sar2 = num.rshift2();
            sum = add(n_sar2, sum);
            num = add(n_sar2, new int128_t(0, num.L & 3));
        }

        if (num.H == 0 && num.L == 3)
        {
            // sum = add(sum, 1);
            sum.L++;
            if (sum.L == 0) sum.H++;
        }
        return sum; 
    }
};

int128_t t = new int128_t(0, x);
t = t.add(new int128_t(0, y));
t = t.add(new int128_t(0, z));
t = t.divideby3();
long average = t.L;

In C/C++ on 64-bit platforms it's much easier with __int128

int64_t average = ((__int128)x + y + z)/3;

Answer 6

If you know you have N values, can you just divide each value by N and sum them together?

long GetAverage(long* arrayVals, int n)
{
    long avg = 0;
    long rem = 0;

    for(int i=0; i<n; ++i)
    {
        avg += arrayVals[i] / n;
        rem += arrayVals[i] % n;
    }

    return avg + (rem / n);
}