c++ - Calculating Binomial Coefficient (nCk) for large n & k

Question

I just saw this question and have no idea how to solve it. can you please provide me with algorithms , C++ codes or ideas?

This is a very simple problem. Given the value of N and K, you need to tell us the value of the binomial coefficient C(N,K). You may rest assured that K <= N and the maximum value of N is 1,000,000,000,000,000. Since the value may be very large, you need to compute the result modulo 1009. Input

The first line of the input contains the number of test cases T, at most 1000. Each of the next T lines consists of two space separated integers N and K, where 0 <= K <= N and 1 <= N <= 1,000,000,000,000,000. Output

For each test case, print on a new line, the value of the binomial coefficient C(N,K) modulo 1009. Example

Input:
3
3 1
5 2
10 3

Output:
3
10
120

Answer 1

Notice that 1009 is a prime.

Now you can use Lucas' Theorem.

Which states:

Let p be a prime.
If n  = a1a2...ar when written in base p and
if k  = b1b2...br when written in base p

(pad with zeroes if required)

Then

(n choose k) modulo p = (a1 choose b1) * (a2 choose  b2) * ... * (ar choose br) modulo p.

i.e. remainder of n choose k when divided by p is same as the remainder of
the product (a1 choose b1) * .... * (ar choose br) when divided by p.
Note: if bi > ai then ai choose bi is 0.

Thus your problem is reduced to finding the product modulo 1009 of at most log N/log 1009 numbers (number of digits of N in base 1009) of the form a choose b where a <= 1009 and b <= 1009.

This should make it easier even when N is close to 10^15.

Note:

For N=10^15, N choose N/2 is more than 2^(100000000000000) which is way beyond an unsigned long long.

Also, the algorithm suggested by Lucas' theorem is O(log N) which is exponentially faster than trying to compute the binomial coefficient directly (even if you did a mod 1009 to take care of the overflow issue).

Here is some code for Binomial I had written long back, all you need to do is to modify it to do the operations modulo 1009 (there might be bugs and not necessarily recommended coding style):

class Binomial
{
public:
    Binomial(int Max)
    {
        max = Max+1;
        table = new unsigned int * [max]();
        for (int i=0; i < max; i++)
        {
            table[i] = new unsigned int[max]();

            for (int j = 0; j < max; j++)
            {
                table[i][j] = 0;
            }
        }
    }

    ~Binomial()
    {
        for (int i =0; i < max; i++)
        {
            delete table[i];
        }
        delete table;
    }

    unsigned int Choose(unsigned int n, unsigned int k);

private:
    bool Contains(unsigned int n, unsigned int k);

    int max;
    unsigned int **table;
};

unsigned int Binomial::Choose(unsigned int n, unsigned int k)
{
    if (n < k) return 0;
    if (k == 0 || n==1 ) return 1;
    if (n==2 && k==1) return 2;
    if (n==2 && k==2) return 1;
    if (n==k) return 1;


    if (Contains(n,k))
    {
        return table[n][k];
    }
    table[n][k] = Choose(n-1,k) + Choose(n-1,k-1);
    return table[n][k];
}

bool Binomial::Contains(unsigned int n, unsigned int k)
{
    if (table[n][k] == 0) 
    {
        return false;
    }
    return true;
}