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14 changes: 12 additions & 2 deletions Sprint-2/improve_with_caches/fibonacci/fibonacci.py
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
@@ -1,4 +1,14 @@
cache = {}


def fibonacci(n):
if n in cache:
return cache[n]

if n <= 1:
return n
return fibonacci(n - 1) + fibonacci(n - 2)
result = n
else:
result = fibonacci(n - 1) + fibonacci(n - 2)

cache[n] = result
return result
43 changes: 22 additions & 21 deletions Sprint-2/improve_with_caches/making_change/making_change.py
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
@@ -1,32 +1,33 @@
from typing import List


cache = {}
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Note: Declaring cache as a global variable would make the code not thread safe (but we don't have to worry about multi-threaded scenario in this exercise).

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Thanks @cjyuan for pointing that out! I understand the thread-safety concern with global variables. Since this is a single-threaded exercise, it's acceptable here.

coins = [200, 100, 50, 20, 10, 5, 2, 1]
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If coins is to serve as a named constant, consider naming it with all uppercase letters (to follow the naming convention).

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Got it! @cjyuan I've renamed coins to COINS to follow the constant naming convention. Thanks for catching that!



def ways_to_make_change(total: int) -> int:
"""
Given access to coins with the values 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200, returns a count of all of the ways to make the passed total value.

For instance, there are two ways to make a value of 3: with 3x 1 coins, or with 1x 1 coin and 1x 2 coin.
"""
return ways_to_make_change_helper(total, [200, 100, 50, 20, 10, 5, 2, 1])
cache.clear()
return ways_to_make_change_helper(total, 0)


def ways_to_make_change_helper(total: int, coins: List[int]) -> int:
"""
Helper function for ways_to_make_change to avoid exposing the coins parameter to callers.
"""
if total == 0 or len(coins) == 0:
def ways_to_make_change_helper(total: int, coin_index: int) -> int:
key = (total, coin_index)
if key in cache:
return cache[key]

if total == 0:
return 1
if coin_index >= len(coins) or total < 0:
return 0
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Tuple construction and and map/dict lookup operations, while theoretically O(1) operations, are still relatively "slow" compare to simple arithmetic operations.

If you move lines 19-22 before line 15, you may notice slight improvement in performance.

Optional challenge:
And if you can figure out a way to avoid unnecessary lookup when there is only one coin left to consider, you shall notice a significant improvement in performance.

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@cjyuan Great suggestions! I've implemented both optimizations


ways = 0
for coin_index in range(len(coins)):
coin = coins[coin_index]
count_of_coin = 1
while coin * count_of_coin <= total:
total_from_coins = coin * count_of_coin
if total_from_coins == total:
ways += 1
else:
intermediate = ways_to_make_change_helper(total - total_from_coins, coins=coins[coin_index+1:])
ways += intermediate
count_of_coin += 1
coin = coins[coin_index]
count_of_coin = 0

while coin * count_of_coin <= total:
ways += ways_to_make_change_helper(total - (coin * count_of_coin), coin_index + 1)
count_of_coin += 1

cache[key] = ways
return ways