CS115 Writing your own factorial function Solution
>>> f r o m m a t h i m p o r t factorial >>> factorial( 5) >>> 120 As shown above, we can use the factorial function from the math module. Here, you'll write your own factorial function. First, we start with a simple function that returns the pro duct of its two inpu ts: def mult(x, y): """Returns the product of x and y""" return x * y Nothing too surprising here. Now, take a look at this: >>> reduce(mult, [2, 3]) 6 >>> reduce(mult, [2, 3, 4]) 24 >>> reduce(mult, [1, 2, 3, 4]) 24 Notice that reduce takes two inputs: A function and a list and it applies that function to "compress" the list into a single value. In this case, it multiplied all of the values together. Now, write a function factorial(n) that takes a positive integer n and returns n!. This is "mean"... >>> len([1, 3, 5]) 3 >>> len(range(1,10)) 9 Here is the mean function in action: >>> mean([1, 2, 3]) 2 >>> mean([1, 1, 1]) 1