475 Eric Normand Newsletter

00 Least common multiple.md

Least common multiple

Write a function that finds the least common multiple of a collection of numbers. Remember that the least common multiple is the smallest integer that is evenly divisible by all the numbers in the collection.

Examples:

(lcm []) ;=> nil (undefined)
(lcm [10]) ;=> 10
(lcm [2 4]) ;=> 4
(lcm [3 7]) ;=> 21
(lcm [2 4 10]) ;=> 20
(lcm [15 2 4]) ;=> 60

Thanks to this site for the problem idea, where it is rated Very Hard in Java. The problem has been modified.

Please submit your solutions as comments on this gist.

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I'm assuming all positive ints. Supporting zero or negatives would require more defensive code.

(defn lcm [nums]
  #_ {:pre [(every? pos-int? nums)]}
  (let [gcd (fn [x y]
              (if (zero? y)
                x
                (recur y (rem x y))))]
    (when (seq nums)
      (reduce (fn [x y] (quot (* x y) (gcd x y))) 1 nums))))