I know there are a lot of already existing questions about this problem, but I haven't found anything that answers mine. My recursion is working fine for lower numbers (I tried int 10) but when I expand it to 100, it becomes exactly one step lower than it should. Not sure why.
My code:
public BigDecimal distinctLadderPaths(int rungs) {
if (rungs < 0)
throw new ArithmeticException("Ladders can't have negative rungs."); // if negative, throw exception
else if (rungs == 0)
return BigDecimal.valueOf(0); //if zero, return zero
else if (rungs <= 2)
return BigDecimal.valueOf(rungs); //if 1 or 2, return 1 or 2, respectively
else{
long[] f = new long[(rungs + 1)]; //create long Array for memory (f for fibonacci)
f[0] = 0; //1 steps
f[1] = 1; //2 steps
for(int i = 2; i <= rungs; i++) { //loop
f[i] = f[i - 1] + f[i - 2]; //at each step in the loop, add 1 step lower and 2 steps lower from the number of iterations
}
return BigDecimal.valueOf(f[rungs]); //return fibonacci value at final step of the rungs as BigDecimal
}
}
test code:
@Test
public void testDistinctLadderPaths100 (){
int rungs = 100;
BigDecimal expected = new BigDecimal("573147844013817084101");
BigDecimal result = lp.distinctLadderPaths(rungs);
assertEquals(expected, result);
}
I'm told the output should be 57314784401381708410
, but I'm getting 3736710778780434371
(which is the fibonacci number at the 99th step). Any ideas why?