Question

I have some weird numbers such as 19 or 23. These two will need to be separated into 5 lists, such that the sum of the 5 lists will be 19. In other words, 3.8 in each list as 19/5 = 3.8. However the issue is that I can’t have decimals, I want rounded numbers. Is there any way that it would round the numbers accordingly, placing 4, 4, 3, 4, 4 into the lists rather than 3.8 five times?

Even more, some aren’t separated into 5 different numbers. Some might be something like 77/12, thus being separated into 12 diff. lists with either the number 6 or 7 in each, that ends up adding to 77.

Any idea how I could approach this problem?

Thanks!

Answer 1

def split(number, length):
    div, mod = divmod(number, length)
    return [div+1]*mod + [div]*(length-mod)

>>> split(19, 5)
[4, 4, 4, 4, 3]
>>> split(23, 4)
[6, 6, 6, 5]

Original version:

def split(number, length):
    result = [number//length]*length
    for i in range(number%length):
        result[i] += 1
    return result