I think yours is working a little harder than necessary. (Update: I didn't recognize the cache.) Also note that you ought to localize $_ if you're going to use it where Perl isn't automatically localizing it.
for (10,15,20831323,99,100) {
print "$_: ", nearPrime($_), "\n";
}
sub nearPrime {
my $num = shift;
local $_ = 0; # otherwise tries to modify for loop var above
return $num if isPrime($num);
while (1) {
$_++;
return ($num - $_) if isPrime($num - $_);
return ($num + $_) if isPrime($num + $_);
}
}
...
An alternative nearPrime sub:
sub nearPrime {
my $num = shift;
my $sign = 1;
return $num if isPrime($num);
for (0..$num) {
$num += $sign * $_;
return $num if isPrime($num);
$sign = -$sign;
}
}
And this isPrime does a little less work by checking only odd numbers:
BEGIN {
my @primes = (2, 3); my $max = 3;
sub isPrime {
my $num = shift;
my $root = int sqrt $num;
while ($max <= $root) {
$max += 2;
push(@primes, $max) if isPrime($max);
}
for (@primes) {
last if $_ > $root;
return 0 if ($num % $_ == 0);
}
return 1;
}
}
Caution: Contents may have been coded under pressure.