Python: Set Bits Count (popcount)

Question

Few blob's have been duplicated in my database(oracle 11g), performed XOR operations on the blob using UTL_RAW.BIT_XOR. After that i wanted to count the number of set bits in the binary string, so wrote the code above.

During a small experiment, i wanted to see what is the hex and the integer value produced and wrote this procedure..

SQL> declare
2
3 vblob1 blob;
4
5 BEGIN
6
7 select leftiriscode INTO vblob1 FROM irisdata WHERE irisid=1;
8
9 dbms_output.put_line(rawtohex(vblob1));
10
11
12 dbms_output.put_line(UTL_RAW.CAST_TO_binary_integer(vblob1));
13
14
15 END;
16 /

OUTPUT: HEXVALUE:

0F0008020003030D030C1D1C3C383C330A3311373724764C54496C0A6B029B84840547A341BBA83D
BB5FB9DE4CDE5EFE96E1FC6169438344D604681D409F9F9F3BC07EE0C4E0C033A23B37791F59F84F
F94E4F664E3072B0229DA09D9F0F1FC600C2E380D6988C198B39517D157E7D66FE675237673D3D28
3A016C01411003343C76740F710F0F4F8FE976E1E882C186D316A63C0C7D7D7D7D397F016101B043
0176C37E767C7E0C7D010C8302C2D3E4F2ACE42F8D3F3F367A46F54285434ABB61BDB53CBF6C7CC0
F4C1C3F349B3F7BEB30E4A0CFE1C85180DC338C2C1C6E7A5CE3104303178724CCC5F451F573F3B24
7F24052000202003291F130F1B0E070C0E0D0F0E0F0B0B07070F1E1B330F27073F3F272E2F2F6F7B
2F2E1F2E4F7EFF7EDF3EBF253F3D2F39BF3D7F7FFED72FF39FE7773DBE9DBFBB3FE7A76E777DF55C
5F5F7ADF7FBD7F6AFE7B7D1FBE7F7F7DD7F63FBFBF2D3B7F7F5F2F7F3D7F7D3B3F3B7FFF4D676F7F
5D9FAD7DD17F7F6F6F0B6F7F3F767F1779364737370F7D3F5F377F2F3D3F7F1F2FE7709FB7BCB77B
0B77CF1DF5BF1F7F3D3E4E7F197F571F7D7E3F7F7F7D7F6F4F75FF6F7ECE2FFF793EFFEDB7BDDD1F
FF3BCE3F7F3FBF3D6C7FFF7F7F4FAF7F6FFFFF8D7777BF3AE30FAEEEEBCF5FEEFEE75FFEACFFDF0F
DFFFF77FFF677F4FFF7F7F1B5F1F5F146F1F1E1B3B1F3F273303170F370E250B

INTEGER VALUE: 15

There was a variance between the hex code and the integer value produced, so used the following python code to check the actual integer value.

print int("0F0008020003030D030C1D1C3C383C330A3311373724764C54496C0A6B029B84840547A341BBA83D
BB5FB9DE4CDE5EFE96E1FC6169438344D604681D409F9F9F3BC07EE0C4E0C033A23B37791F59F84F
F94E4F664E3072B0229DA09D9F0F1FC600C2E380D6988C198B39517D157E7D66FE675237673D3D28
3A016C01411003343C76740F710F0F4F8FE976E1E882C186D316A63C0C7D7D7D7D397F016101B043
0176C37E767C7E0C7D010C8302C2D3E4F2ACE42F8D3F3F367A46F54285434ABB61BDB53CBF6C7CC0
F4C1C3F349B3F7BEB30E4A0CFE1C85180DC338C2C1C6E7A5CE3104303178724CCC5F451F573F3B24
7F24052000202003291F130F1B0E070C0E0D0F0E0F0B0B07070F1E1B330F27073F3F272E2F2F6F7B
2F2E1F2E4F7EFF7EDF3EBF253F3D2F39BF3D7F7FFED72FF39FE7773DBE9DBFBB3FE7A76E777DF55C
5F5F7ADF7FBD7F6AFE7B7D1FBE7F7F7DD7F63FBFBF2D3B7F7F5F2F7F3D7F7D3B3F3B7FFF4D676F7F
5D9FAD7DD17F7F6F6F0B6F7F3F767F1779364737370F7D3F5F377F2F3D3F7F1F2FE7709FB7BCB77B
0B77CF1DF5BF1F7F3D3E4E7F197F571F7D7E3F7F7F7D7F6F4F75FF6F7ECE2FFF793EFFEDB7BDDD1F
FF3BCE3F7F3FBF3D6C7FFF7F7F4FAF7F6FFFFF8D7777BF3AE30FAEEEEBCF5FEEFEE75FFEACFFDF0F
DFFFF77FFF677F4FFF7F7F1B5F1F5F146F1F1E1B3B1F3F273303170F370E250B",16)

Answer:

611951595100708231079693644541095422704525056339295086455197024065285448917042457
942011979060274412229909425184116963447100932992139876977824261789243946528467423
887840013630358158845039770703659333212332565531927875442166643379024991542726916
563271158141698128396823655639931773363878078933197184072343959630467756337300811
165816534945075483141582643531294791665590339000206551162697220540050652439977992
246472159627917169957822698172925680112854091876671868161705785698942483896808137
210721991100755736178634253569843464062494863175653771387230991126430841565373390
924951878267929443498220727531299945275045612499928105876210478958806304156695438
684335624641395635997624911334453040399012259638042898470872203581555352191122920
004010193837249388365999010692555403377045768493630826307316376698443166439386014
145858084176544890282148970436631175577000673079418699845203671050174181808397880
048734270748095682582556024378558289251964544327507321930196203199459115159756564
507340111030285226951393012863778670390172056906403480159339130447254293412506482
027099835944315172972281427649277354815211185293109925602315480350955479477144523
387689192243720928249121486221114300503766209279369960344185651810101969585926336
07333771272398091

To get the set-bit count I have written the following code in C:

int bitsoncount(unsigned x)
{
    unsigned int b=0;
    if(x > 1)
     b=1; 
    while(x &= (x - 1))
     b++; 
    return b;
}

When I tried the same code in python it did not work. I am new to python through curiosity I'm experimenting, excuse me if am wrong.

def bitsoncount(x):
b=0;
if(x>1):
b=1;
while(x &= (x-1)):

I get an error at the last line, need some help in resolving this and implementing the logic in python :-)

I was interested in checking out the set bits version in python after what i have seen!

Thank You, Chaitanya

Related question: Best algorithm to count the number of set bits in a 32-bit integer?

Answer 1

What version of Python are you using? First off, Python uses white space not semicolon's, so to start it should look something like this...

  def bitsoncount(x): 
      b=0
      while(x > 0):
          x &= x - 1   
          b+=1
      return b

What is the code supposed to do?

Answer 2

The direct translation of your C algorithm is as follows:

def bitsoncount(x):
    b = 0
    while x > 0:
        x &= x - 1
        b += 1
    return b

Answer 3

Maybe this is what you mean?

def bits_on_count(x):
    b = 0
    while x != 0:
        if x & 1: # Last bit is a 1
            b += 1
        x >>= 1 # Shift the bits of x right
    return b

There's also a way to do it simply in Python 3.0:

def bits_on_count(x):
  return sum(c=='1' for c in bin(x))

This uses the fact that bin(x) gives a binary representation of x.

Answer 4

what you're looking for is called the Hamming Weight.

in python 2.6/3.0 it can be found rather easily with:

bits = sum( b == '1' for b in bin(x)[2:] )

Answer 5

@Autoplectic You are right! I am looking for the hamming weight!

Answer 6

Try this module:

import sys
if sys.maxint < 2**32:
    msb2= 2**30
else:
    msb2= 2**62
BITS=[-msb2*2] # not converted into long
while msb2:
    BITS.append(msb2)
    msb2 >>= 1

def bitcount(n):
    return sum(1 for b in BITS if b&n)

This should work for machine integers (depending on your OS and the Python version). It won't work for any long.

Answer 7

Python 2.6 or 3.0:

def bitsoncount(x):
    return bin(x).count('1')

Example:

>>> x = 123
>>> bin(x)
'0b1111011'
>>> bitsoncount(x) 
6

Or

Matt Howells's answer in Python:

def bitsoncount(i):
    assert 0 <= i < 0x100000000
    i = i - ((i >> 1) & 0x55555555)
    i = (i & 0x33333333) + ((i >> 2) & 0x33333333)
    return (((i + (i >> 4) & 0xF0F0F0F) * 0x1010101) & 0xffffffff) >> 24

Answer 8

How do you like this one:

def bitsoncount(x):
    b   = 0
    bit = 1
    while bit <= x:
        b += int(x & bit > 0)
        bit = bit << 1

    return b

Basically, you use a test bit that starts right and gets shifted all the way through up to the bit length of your in parameter. For each position the bit & x yields a single bit which is on, or none. Check > 0 and turn the resulting True|False into 1|0 with int(), and add this to the accumulator. Seems to work nicely for longs :-) .