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Zhaoxiu Zeng authored
The binary GCD algorithm is based on the following facts: 1. If a and b are all evens, then gcd(a,b) = 2 * gcd(a/2, b/2) 2. If a is even and b is odd, then gcd(a,b) = gcd(a/2, b) 3. If a and b are all odds, then gcd(a,b) = gcd((a-b)/2, b) = gcd((a+b)/2, b) Even on x86 machines with reasonable division hardware, the binary algorithm runs about 25% faster (80% the execution time) than the division-based Euclidian algorithm. On platforms like Alpha and ARMv6 where division is a function call to emulation code, it's even more significant. There are two variants of the code here, depending on whether a fast __ffs (find least significant set bit) instruction is available. This allows the unpredictable branches in the bit-at-a-time shifting loop to be eliminated. If fast __ffs is not available, the "even/odd" GCD variant is used. I use the following code to benchmark: #include <stdio.h> #include <stdlib.h> #include <stdint.h> #include <string...
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