Find the difference between the square of the sum and the sum of the squares of the first N natural numbers.
The square of the sum of the first ten natural numbers is (1 + 2 + ... + 10)² = 55² = 3025.
The sum of the squares of the first ten natural numbers is 1² + 2² + ... + 10² = 385.
Hence the difference between the square of the sum of the first ten natural numbers and the sum of the squares of the first ten natural numbers is 3025 - 385 = 2640.
You are not expected to discover an efficient solution to this yourself from first principles; research is allowed, indeed, encouraged. Finding the best algorithm for the problem is a key skill in software engineering.
Sometimes it is necessary to raise an exception. When you do this, you should include a meaningful error message to indicate what the source of the error is. This makes your code more readable and helps significantly with debugging. Not every exercise will require you to raise an exception, but for those that do, the tests will only pass if you include a message.
To raise a message with an exception, just write it as an argument to the exception type. For example, instead of
raise Exception, you should write:
raise Exception("Meaningful message indicating the source of the error")To run the tests, run pytest difference_of_squares_test.py
Alternatively, you can tell Python to run the pytest module:
python -m pytest difference_of_squares_test.py
-v: enable verbose output-x: stop running tests on first failure--ff: run failures from previous test before running other test cases
For other options, see python -m pytest -h
Note that, when trying to submit an exercise, make sure the solution is in the $EXERCISM_WORKSPACE/python/difference-of-squares directory.
You can find your Exercism workspace by running exercism debug and looking for the line that starts with Workspace.
For more detailed information about running tests, code style and linting, please see Running the Tests.
Problem 6 at Project Euler http://projecteuler.net/problem=6
It's possible to submit an incomplete solution so you can see how others have completed the exercise.