I'm not sure if there is a given term for this problem but I'm trying to find the number of iterations required to complete this type of pattern:
Consider two patterns/lists: [a,b,c]
& [0,1]
The entire pattern would be a0 b1 c0 a1 b0 c1
and the number of iterations would be 6.
I wrote a perl script to calculate several of these patterns:
3 vs. 2:
1: 1 1
2: 2 2
3: 3 1
4: 1 2
5: 2 1
6: 3 2
4 vs. 5:
1: 1 1
2: 2 2
3: 3 3
4: 4 4
5: 1 5
6: 2 1
7: 3 2
8: 4 3
9: 1 4
10: 2 5
11: 3 1
12: 4 2
13: 1 3
14: 2 4
15: 3 5
16: 4 1
17: 1 2
18: 2 3
19: 3 4
20: 4 5
6 vs. 4:
1: 1 1
2: 2 2
3: 3 3
4: 4 4
5: 5 1
6: 6 2
7: 1 3
8: 2 4
9: 3 1
10: 4 2
11: 5 3
12: 6 4
12 vs. 9:
1: 1 1
2: 2 2
3: 3 3
4: 4 4
5: 5 5
6: 6 6
7: 7 7
8: 8 8
9: 9 9
10: 10 1
11: 11 2
12: 12 3
13: 1 4
14: 2 5
15: 3 6
16: 4 7
17: 5 8
18: 6 9
19: 7 1
20: 8 2
21: 9 3
22: 10 4
23: 11 5
24: 12 6
25: 1 7
26: 2 8
27: 3 9
28: 4 1
29: 5 2
30: 6 3
31: 7 4
32: 8 5
33: 9 6
34: 10 7
35: 11 8
36: 12 9
Is there a term for this type of "algorithm"? How can I algebraically solve for the number of iterations without going through each one at a time?
Can someone help me derive a formula?