Question

Been trying to implement Rabin-Miller Strong Pseudoprime Test today.

Have used Wolfram Mathworld as reference, lines 3-5 sums up my code pretty much.

However, when I run the program, it says (sometimes) that primes (even low such as 5, 7, 11) are not primes. I’ve looked over the code for a very long while and cannot figure out what is wrong.

For help I’ve looked at this site aswell as many other sites but most use another definition (probably the same, but since I’m new to this kind of math, I can’t see the same obvious connection).

My Code:

import random

def RabinMiller(n, k):

    # obviously not prime
    if n < 2 or n % 2 == 0:
        return False

    # special case        
    if n == 2:
        return True

    s = 0
    r = n - 1

    # factor n - 1 as 2^(r)*s
    while r % 2 == 0:
        s = s + 1
        r = r // 2  # floor

    # k = accuracy
    for i in range(k):
        a = random.randrange(1, n)

        # a^(s) mod n = 1?
        if pow(a, s, n) == 1:
            return True

        # a^(2^(j) * s) mod n = -1 mod n?
        for j in range(r):
            if pow(a, 2**j*s, n) == -1 % n:
                return True

    return False

print(RabinMiller(7, 5))

How does this differ from the definition given at Mathworld?

Answer 1

1. Comments on your code

A number of the points I’ll make below were noted in other answers, but it seems useful to have them all together.

1. In the section

   s = 0
   r = n - 1
   
   # factor n - 1 as 2^(r)*s
   while r % 2 == 0:
       s = s + 1
       r = r // 2  # floor
   

   you’ve got the roles of r and s swapped: you’ve actually factored n − 1 as 2^sr. If you want to stick to the MathWorld notation, then you’ll have to swap r and s in this section of the code:

   # factor n - 1 as 2^(r)*s, where s is odd.
   r, s = 0, n - 1
   while s % 2 == 0:
       r += 1
       s //= 2
   

2. In the line

   for i in range(k):
   

   the variable i is unused: it’s conventional to name such variables _.

3. You pick a random base between 1 and n − 1 inclusive:

   a = random.randrange(1, n)
   

   This is what it says in the MathWorld article, but that article is written from the mathematician’s point of view. In fact it is useless to pick the base 1, since 1^s = 1 (mod n) and you’ll waste a trial. Similarly, it’s useless to pick the base n − 1, since s is odd and so (n − 1)^s = −1 (mod n). Mathematicians don’t have to worry about wasted trials, but programmers do, so write instead:

   a = random.randrange(2, n - 1)
   

   (n needs to be at least 4 for this optimization to work, but we can easily arrange that by returning True at the top of the function when n = 3, just as you do for n = 2.)

4. As noted in other replies, you’ve misunderstood the MathWorld article. When it says that “n passes the test” it means that “n passes the test for the base a“. The distinguishing fact about primes is that they pass the test for all bases. So when you find that a^s = 1 (mod n), what you should do is to go round the loop and pick the next base to test against.

   # a^(s) = 1 (mod n)?
   x = pow(a, s, n)
   if x == 1:
       continue
   

5. There’s an opportunity for optimization here. The value x that we’ve just computed is a²⁰ s (mod n). So we could test it immediately and save ourselves one loop iteration:

   # a^(s) = ±1 (mod n)?
   x = pow(a, s, n)
   if x == 1 or x == n - 1:
       continue
   

6. In the section where you calculate a^2j s (mod n) each of these numbers is the square of the previous number (modulo n). It’s wasteful to calculate each from scratch when you could just square the previous value. So you should write this loop as:

   # a^(2^(j) * s) = -1 (mod n)?
   for _ in range(r - 1):
       x = pow(x, 2, n)
       if x == n - 1:
           break
   else:
       return False
   

7. It’s a good idea to test for divisibility by small primes before trying Miller–Rabin. For example, in Rabin’s 1977 paper he says:

   In implementing the algorithm we incorporate some laborsaving steps. First we test for divisibility by any prime p < N, where, say N = 1000.

2. Revised code

Putting all this together:

from random import randrange

small_primes = [2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31] # etc.

def probably_prime(n, k):
    """Return True if n passes k rounds of the Miller-Rabin primality
    test (and is probably prime). Return False if n is proved to be
    composite.

    """
    if n < 2: return False
    for p in small_primes:
        if n < p * p: return True
        if n % p == 0: return False
    r, s = 0, n - 1
    while s % 2 == 0:
        r += 1
        s //= 2
    for _ in range(k):
        a = randrange(2, n - 1)
        x = pow(a, s, n)
        if x == 1 or x == n - 1:
            continue
        for _ in range(r - 1):
            x = pow(x, 2, n)
            if x == n - 1:
                break
        else:
            return False
    return True