#!/bin/bash

# Douglas Hofstadter's notorious "Q-series":

# Q(1) = Q(2) = 1
# Q(n) = Q(n - Q(n-1)) + Q(n - Q(n-2)), for n>2

# This is a "chaotic" integer series with strange and unpredictable behavior.
# The first 20 terms of the series are:
# 1 1 2 3 3 4 5 5 6 6 6 8 8 8 10 9 10 11 11 12 

# See Hofstadter's book, "Goedel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid",
# p. 137, ff.


LIMIT=100     # Number of terms to calculate
LINEWIDTH=20  # Number of terms printed per line

Q[1]=1        # First two terms of series are 1.
Q[2]=1

echo
echo "Q-series [$LIMIT terms]:"
echo -n "${Q[1]} "             # Output first two terms.
echo -n "${Q[2]} "

for ((n=3; n <= $LIMIT; n++))  # C-like loop conditions.
do   # Q[n] = Q[n - Q[n-1]] + Q[n - Q[n-2]]  for n&gt;2
# Need to break the expression into intermediate terms,
# since Bash doesn't handle complex array arithmetic very well.

  let "n1 = $n - 1"        # n-1
  let "n2 = $n - 2"        # n-2
  
  t0=`expr $n - ${Q[n1]}`  # n - Q[n-1]
  t1=`expr $n - ${Q[n2]}`  # n - Q[n-2]
  
  T0=${Q[t0]}              # Q[n - Q[n-1]]
  T1=${Q[t1]}              # Q[n - Q[n-2]]

Q[n]=`expr $T0 + $T1`      # Q[n - Q[n-1]] + Q[n - Q[n-2]]
echo -n "${Q[n]} "

if [ `expr $n % $LINEWIDTH` -eq 0 ]    # Format output.
then   #     mod
  echo # Break lines into neat chunks.
fi

done

echo

exit 0

# This is an iterative implementation of the Q-series.
# The more intuitive recursive implementation is left as an exercise.
# Warning: calculating this series recursively takes a *very* long time.