Hofstadter Q sequence

Hofstadter Q sequence is a draft programming task. It is not yet considered ready to be promoted as a complete task, for reasons that should be found in its talk page.

The Hofstadter Q sequence is defined as:

${\begin{aligned}Q(1)&=Q(2)=1,\\Q(n)&=Q(n-Q(n-1))+Q(n-Q(n-2)),\quad n>2.\end{aligned}}$

It is defined like the Fibonacci sequence, but whereas the next term in the Fibonacci sequence is the sum of the previous two terms, in the Q sequence the previous two terms tell you how far to go back in the Q sequence to find the two numbers to sum to make the next term of the sequence.

Task

• Confirm and display that the first ten terms of the sequence are: 1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, and 6
• Confirm and display that the 1000'th term is: 502

Optional extra credit

• Count and display how many times a member of the sequence is less than its preceeding term for terms up to and including the 100,000'th term.

Python

<lang python>def q(n):

   if n < 1 or type(n) != int: raise ValueError("n must be an int >= 1")
   try:
       return q.seq[n]
   except IndexError:
       ans = q(n - q(n - 1)) + q(n - q(n - 2))
       q.seq.append(ans)
       return ans

q.seq = [None, 1, 1]

if __name__ == '__main__':

   first10 = [q(i) for i in range(1,11)]
   assert first10 == [1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6], "Q() value error(s)"
   print("Q(n) for n = [1..10] is:", ', '.join(str(i) for i in first10))
   assert q(1000) == 502, "Q(1000) value error"
   print("Q(1000) =", q(1000))</lang>

Extra credit

If you try and initially compute larger values of n then you tend to hit the Python recursion limit.

The function q1 gets around this by calling function q to extend the Q series in increments below the recursion limit.

The following code is to be concatenated to the code above: <lang python>from sys import getrecursionlimit

def q1(n):

   if n < 1 or type(n) != int: raise ValueError("n must be an int >= 1")
   try:
       return q.seq[n]
   except IndexError:
       len_q, rlimit = len(q.seq), getrecursionlimit()
       if (n - len_q) > (rlimit // 5):
           for i in range(len_q, n, rlimit // 5):
               q(i)
       ans = q(n - q(n - 1)) + q(n - q(n - 2))
       q.seq.append(ans)
       return ans

if __name__ == '__main__':

   tmp = q1(100000)
   print("Q(i+1) < Q(i) for i [1..10000] is true %i times." %
         sum(k1 < k0 for k0, k1 in zip(q.seq[1:], q.seq[2:])))</lang>

Combined output

Q(n) for n = [1..10] is: 1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6
Q(1000) = 502
Q(i+1) < Q(i) for i [1..10000] is true 49798 times.