On 11/28/05, O Plameras <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Another way of saying: factorial 0 = 1 is a "by definition" thing in
> Mathematics and everybody then accepts it,
>
> i.e., there is no logical basis for it.
Actually, there is a method to the madness. To quote MathWorld:
"The special case 0! is defined to have value 0!==1, consistent with
the combinatorial interpretation of there being exactly one way to
arrange zero objects (i.e., there is a single permutation of zero
elements, namely the empty set emptyset)."
That sounds entirely reasonable to me.
Which reminds me, my iterative variation of the algorithm totally
dropped the ball on this one. D'oh! :)
Corrected (if a bit less elegant):
--------------BEGIN CODE -----------------------------------------------
int
factorial(int y)
{
if (!y)
{
return 1;
}
int multiplier, result = y;
for (multiplier = 2; multiplier < y; multiplier++)
{
result *= multiplier;
}
return result;
}
---------------- END CODE -----------------------------------------------
Tess
(who apologises for her previous 0 case missing lameness)
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