How does this prime number test in Java work?

Question

The code snippet below checks whether a given number is a prime number. Can someone explain to me why this works? This code was on a study guide given to us for a Java exam.

public static void main(String[] args)
{    
    int j = 2;
    int result = 0;
    int number = 0;
    Scanner reader = new Scanner(System.in);
    System.out.println("Please enter a number: ");
    number = reader.nextInt();
    while (j <= number / 2)
    {
        if (number % j == 0)
        {
           result = 1;
        }
        j++;
    }
    if (result == 1)
    {
        System.out.println("Number: " + number + " is Not Prime.");
    }
    else
    {
        System.out.println("Number: " + number + " is Prime. ");
    }
}

Answer 1

It works by iterating over all number between 2 and half of the number entered (since any number greater than the input/2 (but less than the input) would yield a fraction). If the number input divided by j yields a 0 remainder (if (number % j == 0)) then the number input is divisible by a number other than 1 or itself. In this case result is set to 1 and the number is not a prime number.

Answer 2

Java java.math.BigInteger class contains a method isProbablePrime(int certainty) to check the primality of a number.

isProbablePrime(int certainty): A method in BigInteger class to check if a given number is prime. For certainty = 1, it return true if BigInteger is prime and false if BigInteger is composite.

Miller–Rabin primality algorithm is used to check primality in this method.

import java.math.BigInteger;

public class TestPrime {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        int number = 83;
        boolean isPrime = testPrime(number);
        System.out.println(number + " is prime : " + isPrime);

    }

    /**
     * method to test primality
     * @param number
     * @return boolean
     */
    private static boolean testPrime(int number) {
        BigInteger bValue = BigInteger.valueOf(number);

        /**
         * isProbablePrime method used to check primality. 
         * */
        boolean result = bValue.isProbablePrime(1);

        return result;
    }
}

Output: 83 is prime : true

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