Ugly numbers are numbers whose only prime factors are 2, 3 or 5. The sequence 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 15, … shows the first 11 ugly numbers. By convention, 1 is included.

Given a number n, the task is to find n’th Ugly number.

Input  : n = 7
Output : 8

Input  : n = 10
Output : 12

Input  : n = 15
Output : 24

Input  : n = 150
Output : 5832

 

Method (Use Dynamic Programming)

Here is a time efficient solution with O(n) extra space. The ugly-number sequence is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 15, …
because every number can only be divided by 2, 3, 5, one way to look at the sequence is to split the sequence to three groups as below:
(1) 1×2, 2×2, 3×2, 4×2, 5×2, …
(2) 1×3, 2×3, 3×3, 4×3, 5×3, …
(3) 1×5, 2×5, 3×5, 4×5, 5×5, …

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We can find that every subsequence is the ugly-sequence itself (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, …) multiply 2, 3, 5. Then we use similar merge method as merge sort, to get every ugly number from the three subsequence. Every step we choose the smallest one, and move one step after.

1 Declare an array for ugly numbers:  ugly[n]
2 Initialize first ugly no:  ugly[0] = 1
3 Initialize three array index variables i2, i3, i5 to point to 
   1st element of the ugly array: 
        i2 = i3 = i5 =0; 
4 Initialize 3 choices for the next ugly no:
         next_mulitple_of_2 = ugly[i2]*2;
         next_mulitple_of_3 = ugly[i3]*3
         next_mulitple_of_5 = ugly[i5]*5;
5 Now go in a loop to fill all ugly numbers till 150:
For (i = 1; i < 150; i++ ) 
{
    /* These small steps are not optimized for good 
      readability. Will optimize them in C program */
    next_ugly_no  = Min(next_mulitple_of_2,
                        next_mulitple_of_3,
                        next_mulitple_of_5); 
    if (next_ugly_no  == next_mulitple_of_2) 
    {             
        i2 = i2 + 1;        
        next_mulitple_of_2 = ugly[i2]*2;
    } 
    if (next_ugly_no  == next_mulitple_of_3) 
    {             
        i3 = i3 + 1;        
        next_mulitple_of_3 = ugly[i3]*3;
     }            
     if (next_ugly_no  == next_mulitple_of_5)
     {    
        i5 = i5 + 1;        
        next_mulitple_of_5 = ugly[i5]*5;
     } 
     ugly[i] =  next_ugly_no       
}/* end of for loop */ 
6.return next_ugly_no
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Example:
Let us see how it works

initialize
   ugly[] =  | 1 |
   i2 =  i3 = i5 = 0;

First iteration
   ugly[1] = Min(ugly[i2]*2, ugly[i3]*3, ugly[i5]*5)
            = Min(2, 3, 5)
            = 2
   ugly[] =  | 1 | 2 |
   i2 = 1,  i3 = i5 = 0  (i2 got incremented ) 

Second iteration
    ugly[2] = Min(ugly[i2]*2, ugly[i3]*3, ugly[i5]*5)
             = Min(4, 3, 5)
             = 3
    ugly[] =  | 1 | 2 | 3 |
    i2 = 1,  i3 =  1, i5 = 0  (i3 got incremented ) 

Third iteration
    ugly[3] = Min(ugly[i2]*2, ugly[i3]*3, ugly[i5]*5)
             = Min(4, 6, 5)
             = 4
    ugly[] =  | 1 | 2 | 3 |  4 |
    i2 = 2,  i3 =  1, i5 = 0  (i2 got incremented )

Fourth iteration
    ugly[4] = Min(ugly[i2]*2, ugly[i3]*3, ugly[i5]*5)
              = Min(6, 6, 5)
              = 5
    ugly[] =  | 1 | 2 | 3 |  4 | 5 |
    i2 = 2,  i3 =  1, i5 = 1  (i5 got incremented )

Fifth iteration
    ugly[4] = Min(ugly[i2]*2, ugly[i3]*3, ugly[i5]*5)
              = Min(6, 6, 10)
              = 6
    ugly[] =  | 1 | 2 | 3 |  4 | 5 | 6 |
    i2 = 3,  i3 =  2, i5 = 1  (i2 and i3 got incremented )

Will continue same way till I < 150
Python
# Python program to find n'th Ugly number

# Function to get the nth ugly number
def getNthUglyNo(n):

ugly = [0] * n # To store ugly numbers

# 1 is the first ugly number
ugly[0] = 1

# i2, i3, i5 will indicate indices for 2,3,5 respectively
i2 = i3 =i5 = 0

# set initial multiple value
next_multiple_of_2 = 2
next_multiple_of_3 = 3
next_multiple_of_5 = 5

# start loop to find value from ugly[1] to ugly[n]
for l in range(1, n):

# choose the min value of all available multiples
ugly[l] = min(next_multiple_of_2, next_multiple_of_3, next_multiple_of_5)

# increment the value of index accordingly
if ugly[l] == next_multiple_of_2:
i2 += 1
next_multiple_of_2 = ugly[i2] * 2

if ugly[l] == next_multiple_of_3:
i3 += 1
next_multiple_of_3 = ugly[i3] * 3

if ugly[l] == next_multiple_of_5:
i5 += 1
next_multiple_of_5 = ugly[i5] * 5

# return ugly[n] value
return ugly[-1]

def main():

n = 150

print getNthUglyNo(n)


if __name__ == '__main__':
main()

Output :

5832

Algorithmic Paradigm: Dynamic Programming
Time Complexity: O(n)
Auxiliary Space: O(n)

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