How to find the largest prime factor of a number in Python
How to find the largest prime factor of a number in Python.
Here's a detailed step by step tutorial on how to find the largest prime factor of a number in Python:
Start by defining a function called
largest_prime_factor
that takes one parameter,number
, representing the number for which we want to find the largest prime factor.Initialize a variable called
largest_factor
to 1. This variable will keep track of the largest prime factor found so far.Create a loop that starts from 2 and goes up to the square root of the given number. This loop will iterate over potential factors of the number.
Inside the loop, check if the current number is a factor of the given number by using the modulo operator (
%
). If the remainder is 0, then the current number is a factor.After confirming that the current number is a factor, check if it is prime. To do this, create another loop that starts from 2 and goes up to the square root of the current number. If the current number is divisible by any of the numbers in this loop, it is not prime. In that case, break out of the loop.
If the current number is prime, update the
largest_factor
variable to the current number.Finally, outside the loops, return the value of
largest_factor
.
Here's an example implementation of the largest_prime_factor
function:
import math
def largest_prime_factor(number):
largest_factor = 1
for i in range(2, int(math.sqrt(number)) + 1):
if number % i == 0:
is_prime = True
for j in range(2, int(math.sqrt(i)) + 1):
if i % j == 0:
is_prime = False
break
if is_prime:
largest_factor = i
return largest_factor
You can test this function by calling it with different numbers. For example:
print(largest_prime_factor(24)) # Output: 3
print(largest_prime_factor(13195)) # Output: 29
print(largest_prime_factor(600851475143)) # Output: 6857
That's it! This implementation will find the largest prime factor of the given number.