Skip to content

fix: prevent overflow in binomial distribution - #15657

Open
landfvit wants to merge 1 commit into
TheAlgorithms:masterfrom
landfvit:fix/binomial-distribution-overflow
Open

landfvit wants to merge 1 commit into
TheAlgorithms:masterfrom
landfvit:fix/binomial-distribution-overflow

Conversation

@landfvit

Copy link
Copy Markdown

Describe your change

  • Add an algorithm?
  • Fix a bug or typo in an existing algorithm?
  • Add or change doctests? -- Note: Please avoid changing both code and tests in a single pull request.
  • Documentation change?

Summary

Fixes #15656

  • Replaced the factorial-based binomial coefficient calculation with math.comb()
  • Added a logarithmic fallback using math.lgamma() for numerically challenging inputs
  • Added regression doctests covering 171 and 10 000 trials

Testing

  • Ruff lint and formatting checks passed
  • All four (2 existing and 2 new) doctests passed
  • Verified selected results against scipy.stats.binom.pmf

The regression doctests are included alongside the bug fix to verify the correct behaviour.

Checklist

  • I have read CONTRIBUTING.md.
  • This pull request is all my own work -- I have not plagiarized.
  • I know that pull requests will not be merged if they fail the automated tests.
  • This PR only changes one algorithm file. To ease review, please open separate PRs for separate algorithms.
  • All new Python files are placed inside an existing directory.
  • All filenames are in all lowercase characters with no spaces or dashes.
  • All functions and variable names follow Python naming conventions.
  • All function parameters and return values are annotated with Python type hints.
  • All functions have doctests that pass the automated testing.
  • All new algorithms include at least one URL that points to Wikipedia or another similar explanation.
  • If this pull request resolves one or more open issues, then the description above includes the issue number(s) with a closing keyword: "Fixes #ISSUE-NUMBER".

@algorithms-keeper algorithms-keeper Bot added awaiting reviews This PR is ready to be reviewed enhancement This PR modified some existing files labels Oct 28, 2026

This branch has not been deployed

No deployments
Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment

Labels

awaiting reviews This PR is ready to be reviewed enhancement This PR modified some existing files

Projects

None yet

Development

Successfully merging this pull request may close these issues.

binomial_distribution overflows at 171 trials even when the result is representable

1 participant