02/11/2020 Fibonacci Numbers - Coderust: Hacking the Coding Interview

Fibonacci Numbers
Find the nth Fibonacci number in the Fibonacci sequence.

We'll cover the following

• Description
• Hints
• Try it yourself
• Solution 1: recursive
• Runtime complexity
• Memory complexity
• Solution 2: iterative
• Runtime complexity
• Memory complexity

Description #
The Fibonacci numbers form a sequence, known as the Fibonacci
sequence where each number is the sum of two preceding ones, starting
from 0 and 1.

The Fibonacci numbers are defined as:

F0 = 0
F1 = 1
Fn = Fn−1 + Fn−2 , for n ≥ 2

By using the defintion above, the first 10 Fibonacci numbers are:

0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34

Write a code to find the nth Fibonacci number in the Fibonacci sequence.

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Hints #
You may use recursion for a brute force solution.
Think along the lines of dynamic programming for an optimized
solution.

Try it yourself #
C++ Java Python JS Ruby

int get_fibonacci(int n) {
//TODO: Write - Your - Code
return -1;
}

Solution 1: recursive #
Runtime complexity #
The runtime complexity of this solution is exponential, O(2n ).

Memory complexity #
The memory complexity of this solution is linear, O(n).

The memory complexity of this recursive solution is O(n) as each

recursive call consumes memory on the stack.

A simplistic approach to get the nth Fibonacci number is to implement the

recurrence relation. Here is how it would look like for n = 4. This
solution is simple to implement but it is highly inefficient.

Let’s see how we can calculate the 4th Fibonacci number using this
approach:

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02/11/2020 Fibonacci Numbers - Coderust: Hacking the Coding Interview

fib(4)

1 of 7

C++ Java Python JS Ruby

int get_fibonacci(int n) {

if (n == 0 || n == 1) {
return n;
}
return get_fibonacci(n - 1) + get_fibonacci(n - 2);
}

int main() {
vector<int> inputs = {1, 5, 7, 10};

for (int i = 0; i < inputs.size(); i++){

cout<< "get_fibonacci(" << inputs[i] << ") = " << get_fibonacci(inputs[i])<<e
}
}

Solution 2: iterative #
Runtime complexity #
The runtime complexity of this solution is linear, O(n).

Memory complexity #
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02/11/2020 Fibonacci Numbers - Coderust: Hacking the Coding Interview

The memory complexity of this solution is constant O(1).

There is a lot of duplication in the recursive solution as shown in the

highlighted area of the figure below:

fib(0) = 0
fib(4) fib(2)
fib(1) = 1

fib(0) = 0
fib(3) fib(2)
fib(1) = 1
fib(1) = 1

While calculating F4 , we are calculating F2 twice. This problem exhibits

the properties of overlapping subproblems and optimal substructure,
which can be solved using dynamic programming.

For calculating Fn , we only need to track Fn−1 and Fn−2 , and we will have
a linear solution.

Initial state
n_1 = 1 n_2 = 0

i = 2, represents the result = 0

Fibonacci number.
We will iterate till n=4.

1 of 4

C++ Java Python JS Ruby

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02/11/2020 Fibonacci Numbers - Coderust: Hacking the Coding Interview

int get_fibonacci(int n) {

if (n == 0 || n == 1) {
return n;
}

int n_1 = 1;
int n_2 = 0;
int res = 0;

for (int i = 2; i <= n; ++i) {

res = n_1 + n_2;

n_2 = n_1;
n_1 = res;
}

return res;
}

int main() {
vector<int> inputs = {1, 5, 7, 10};

for (int i = 0; i < inputs.size(); i++){

cout<< "get_fibonacci(" << inputs[i] << ") = " << get_fibonacci(inputs[i])<<e
}
}

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