Statistics: combinations in Python

Question

See scipy.special.comb (scipy.misc.comb in older versions of scipy). When exact is False, it uses the gammaln function to obtain good precision without taking much time. In the exact case it returns an arbitrary-precision integer, which might take a long time to compute.

Why not write it yourself? It's a one-liner or such:

from operator import mul    # or mul=lambda x,y:x*y
from fractions import Fraction

def nCk(n,k): 
  return int( reduce(mul, (Fraction(n-i, i+1) for i in range(k)), 1) )

Test - printing Pascal's triangle:

>>> for n in range(17):
...     print ' '.join('%5d'%nCk(n,k) for k in range(n+1)).center(100)
...     
                                                   1                                                
                                                1     1                                             
                                             1     2     1                                          
                                          1     3     3     1                                       
                                       1     4     6     4     1                                    
                                    1     5    10    10     5     1                                 
                                 1     6    15    20    15     6     1                              
                              1     7    21    35    35    21     7     1                           
                           1     8    28    56    70    56    28     8     1                        
                        1     9    36    84   126   126    84    36     9     1                     
                     1    10    45   120   210   252   210   120    45    10     1                  
                  1    11    55   165   330   462   462   330   165    55    11     1               
               1    12    66   220   495   792   924   792   495   220    66    12     1            
            1    13    78   286   715  1287  1716  1716  1287   715   286    78    13     1         
         1    14    91   364  1001  2002  3003  3432  3003  2002  1001   364    91    14     1      
      1    15   105   455  1365  3003  5005  6435  6435  5005  3003  1365   455   105    15     1   
    1    16   120   560  1820  4368  8008 11440 12870 11440  8008  4368  1820   560   120    16     1
>>> 

PS. edited to replace int(round(reduce(mul, (float(n-i)/(i+1) for i in range(k)), 1))) with int(reduce(mul, (Fraction(n-i, i+1) for i in range(k)), 1)) so it won't err for big N/K

A quick search on google code gives (it uses formula from @Mark Byers's answer):

def choose(n, k):
    """
    A fast way to calculate binomial coefficients by Andrew Dalke (contrib).
    """
    if 0 <= k <= n:
        ntok = 1
        ktok = 1
        for t in xrange(1, min(k, n - k) + 1):
            ntok *= n
            ktok *= t
            n -= 1
        return ntok // ktok
    else:
        return 0

choose() is 10 times faster (tested on all 0 <= (n,k) < 1e3 pairs) than scipy.misc.comb() if you need an exact answer.

def comb(N,k): # from scipy.comb(), but MODIFIED!
    if (k > N) or (N < 0) or (k < 0):
        return 0L
    N,k = map(long,(N,k))
    top = N
    val = 1L
    while (top > (N-k)):
        val *= top
        top -= 1
    n = 1L
    while (n < k+1L):
        val /= n
        n += 1
    return val

If you want exact results and speed, try gmpy -- gmpy.comb should do exactly what you ask for, and it's pretty fast (of course, as gmpy's original author, I am biased;-).

If you want an exact result, use sympy.binomial. It seems to be the fastest method, hands down.

x = 1000000
y = 234050

%timeit scipy.misc.comb(x, y, exact=True)
1 loops, best of 3: 1min 27s per loop

%timeit gmpy.comb(x, y)
1 loops, best of 3: 1.97 s per loop

%timeit int(sympy.binomial(x, y))
100000 loops, best of 3: 5.06 µs per loop