Code for Greatest Common Divisor in Python [closed]

Question

It's in the standard library.

>>> from fractions import gcd
>>> gcd(20,8)
4

Source code from the inspect module in Python 2.7:

>>> print inspect.getsource(gcd)
def gcd(a, b):
    """Calculate the Greatest Common Divisor of a and b.

    Unless b==0, the result will have the same sign as b (so that when
    b is divided by it, the result comes out positive).
    """
    while b:
        a, b = b, a%b
    return a

As of Python 3.5, gcd is in the math module; the one in fractions is deprecated. Moreover, inspect.getsource no longer returns explanatory source code for either method.

The algorithms with m-n can runs awfully long.

This one performs much better:

def gcd(x, y):
    while y != 0:
        (x, y) = (y, x % y)
    return x

This version of code utilizes Euclid's Algorithm for finding GCD.

def gcd_recursive(a, b):
    if b == 0:
        return a
    else:
        return gcd_recursive(b, a % b)

gcd = lambda m,n: m if not n else gcd(n,m%n)

using recursion,

def gcd(a,b):
    return a if not b else gcd(b, a%b)

using while,

def gcd(a,b):
  while b:
    a,b = b, a%b
  return a

using lambda,

gcd = lambda a,b : a if not b else gcd(b, a%b)

>>> gcd(10,20)
>>> 10

def gcd(m,n):
    return gcd(abs(m-n), min(m, n)) if (m-n) else n