The _Sieve of Eratosthenes_ is one of the oldest-known algorithms, and it's still helpful for deriving prime numbers! The algorithm is attributed to Eratosthenes, a Greek mathemetician born in the third century BCE. ![Eratosthenes](https://content.codecademy.com/PRO/skill-paths/jsip/eratosthenes.jpg) The sieve provides a set of steps for finding all prime numbers up to a given limit. In this article, we'll cover implementing the Sieve of Eratosthenes in JavaScript. As a reminder, a prime number is a positive number with no divisors but `1` and itself. `2`, `3`, `11`, and `443` are all prime numbers. ## Sieve Implementation The sieve works by first assuming that all numbers from ```tex \{2,\dotsc,n\} ``` are prime, and then successively marking them as NOT prime. The algorithm works as follows: 1. Create a list of all integers from 2 to n. 1. Start with the smallest number in the list (2, the smallest prime number). 1. Mark all multiples of that number up to n as not prime. 1. Move to the next non-marked number and repeat this process until the entire list has been covered. When the steps are complete, all remaining non-marked numbers are prime. ### Example If we wanted to find all prime numbers less than or equal to 10, we would: 1. Start with a list where all are assumed to be prime: ```tex 2 \quad 3 \quad 4 \quad 5 \quad 6 \quad 7 \quad 8 \quad 9 \quad 10 ``` 1. Starting with `2`, mark all multiple up to `10` as NOT prime: ```tex 2 \quad 3 \quad \cancel{4} \quad 5 \quad \cancel{6} \quad 7 \quad \cancel{8} \quad 9 \quad \cancel{10} ``` 1. Move to the next non-marked number, `3`, and mark its multiples as NOT prime (`6`) is already marked: ```tex 2 \quad 3 \quad \cancel{4} \quad 5 \quad \cancel{6} \quad 7 \quad \cancel{8} \quad \cancel{9} \quad \cancel{10} ``` 1. Continue marking, starting with every non-marked number (in this case, all multiples of `5` are already marked, and `7`'s first multiple is out of range). This means that we have now found all primes up to `10`: ```tex 2 \quad 3 \quad \cancel{4} \quad 5 \quad \cancel{6} \quad 7 \quad \cancel{8} \quad \cancel{9} \quad \cancel{10} ``` This animation shows the whole process for primes from 1 to 100: ## Implementation Steps in JavaScript There are many possible ways of implementing this algorithm in JavaScript. We'll outline a basic approach here and then walk through it step-by-step. 1. Create an array of all integers from `2` to `n` 1. Set all elements of the array to `true` 1. Starting with `2`, iterate through the array. If the current element is `true`, it is still considered prime. Since we know that all multiples of that number are NOT prime, iterate through all multiples of that number up to `n` and set them equal to `false` 1. Change the current element to the next non-`false` index. 1. Return the corresponding number value for any element still marked as prime (value of `true`). If you'd like to try your hand at implementing the algorithm using these steps, jump to the [complete algorithm](#complete-algorithm) code block below. Otherwise, we'll do walk through a step-by-step breakdown below. ### Step One: Create the Array First, we'll create the array. In this case, we'll create an array to represent all numbers up to the input limit, but we'll use the array index to represent the number, and its value (`true`/`false`) to represent whether it is prime or not. The original algorithm said to use an array of `2, ..., n`, but since we're using indices to represent the actual number, we'll start the array from `0` and essentially ignore the values of `array[0]` and `array[1]`. For example, after running our sieve, an array representing the primes up to `7` would look like this, with elements at `[2]`, `[3]`, `[5]`, and `[7]` marked `true`: ```js [false, false, true, true, false, true, false, true] ``` ### Step Two: Iterate Now we'll implement the bulk of the algorithm to iterate and mark numbers as non-prime. We'll do this in two steps: 1. Create an outer loop to iterate from `2` to the limit. 2. Inside, check if the current number is still marked prime. If it is, we'll mark all its multiples using another loop. ### Step Three: Return Values Now it's time to pare down our array and only return the actual primes. There are many ways to do this, so we're going to let you figure out an approach to this part of the algorithm isolated from the rest of the code.

Hints

* Create a results array, iterate through the input array, and add the correct index if its value is `true`. * Use a combination of `.map()` and `.filter()` to capture indices where the value is `true` and remove the rest. * Use `.reduce()` and include the third optional `index` callback argument to construct a results array.

## Complete Algorithm Now it's time to implement the complete algorithm! Try your hand at it and test it with multiple inputs (it may take a while to run if you call it with a very large input). ### Optimizations There are several small optimizations that can be made to the basic implementation of the sieve to remove duplicate checks for prime-ness. #### End Boundary In our basic implementation, the outer loop iterated from `2` to `n`. Because the inner loop marks multiples of a base value, we only need to check individual numbers lower than the square root of `n`. Consider the example of a limit of `10`: 1. First, all multiples of `2` are marked: ```tex 2 \quad 3 \quad \cancel{4} \quad 5 \quad \cancel{6} \quad 7 \quad \cancel{8} \quad 9 \quad \cancel{10} ``` 1. Then, all multiples of `3` are marked: ```tex 2 \quad 3 \quad \cancel{4} \quad 5 \quad \cancel{6} \quad 7 \quad \cancel{8} \quad \cancel{9} \quad \cancel{10} ``` 1. `4` is less than the square root of `10` (approximately `3.16`), so we can break. If you look at the previous step, all non-prime numbers have indeed already been marked. #### First Multiple In our basic implementation, the inner loop started checking multiples at 2 times the current number. We can skip a few checks starting the checks at current². Consider the example of a limit of `10` again: 1. First, all multiples of `2` are marked: ```tex 2 \quad 3 \quad \cancel{4} \quad 5 \quad \cancel{6} \quad 7 \quad \cancel{8} \quad 9 \quad \cancel{10} ``` 1. Then, all multiples of `3` are marked, but we can skip `6` (`3 * 2`) because it's already been marked. Instead we start at 3², `9`: ```tex 2 \quad 3 \quad \cancel{4} \quad 5 \quad \cancel{6} \quad 7 \quad \cancel{8} \quad \cancel{9} \quad \cancel{10} ``` 1. We've now completed the check with one less comparison. #### Pre-mark All Even Numbers This optimization comes in when building the initial array. There's no need to ever check even numbers after `2`, since they will never be prime, so they can all be marked as non-prime initially.

These optimizations may seem small when dealing with a limit of `10`, but they can significantly speed up the algorithm with larger limits. ## Complexity The complexity of the Sieve of Eratosthenes with optimizations is ```tex O(n\log{}(\log{}n)) ``` There are two operations to take into account: the creation of the array and the incrementing and multiple-marking loops. Creation happens in `O(n)` time, since it creates an element for each number from 2 to `n`. Multiple marking happens in `O(n log log n)` time. The reasons for this come down to some complex math, but briefly: The number of times you mark a non-prime number is ```tex \frac{n}{2} + \frac{n}{3} + ... \frac{n}{\sqrt{n}} ``` It begins with `n / 2` because initially all multiples of `2` are marked as non-prime (this will happen 50 times with a limit of 100, as each even number is marked). This process continues up until the square root of `n`. Through some [fancy mathematical proofs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divergence_of_the_sum_of_the_reciprocals_of_the_primes), this works out to an overall time complexity of ```tex O(n\log{}(\log{}n)) ``` since this is larger than the `O(n)` array-creation time. ## Conclusion The Sieve of Eratosthenes is a millennia-old algorithm, so there are some more improvements and more advanced methods for finding primes invented since its discovery, but it's still a great way to generate lists of prime numbers. Included below is our sieve code including optimizations: ```js const sieveOfEratosthenes = (limit) => { // Handle edge cases if (limit <= 1) { return []; } // Create the output const output = new Array(limit + 1).fill(true); // Mark 0 and 1 as non-prime output[0] = false; output[1] = false; // Iterate up to the square root of the limit for (let i = 2; i < Math.pow(limit, 0.5); i++) { if (output[i] === true) { // Mark all multiples of i as non-prime for (let j = Math.pow(i, 2); j <= limit; j = j + i) { output[j] = false; } } } // Remove non-prime numbers return output.reduce((primes, current, index) => { if (current) { primes.push(index); } return primes }, []); } ```