Problem Statement: Given an integer N. Print the Fibonacci series up to the Nth term.
Examples:
Example 1: Input: N = 5 Output: 0 1 1 2 3 5 Explanation: 0 1 1 2 3 5 is the fibonacci series up to 5th term.(0 based indexing) Example 2: Input: 6 Output: 0 1 1 2 3 5 8 Explanation: 0 1 1 2 3 5 8 is the fibonacci series upto 6th term.(o based indexing)
Solution
Disclaimer: Don’t jump directly to the solution, try it out yourself first.
Solution 1: Naive approach
Intuition: As we know fib(i) = fib(i-1) + fib(i-2).Simply iterate and go on calculating the ith term in the series.
Approach:
- Take an array say fib of size n+1.The 0th term and 1st term are 0 and 1 respectively.So fib(0)=0 and fib(1)=1.
- Now iterate from 2 to n and calculate fib(n).fib(n)=fib(n-1) + fib(n-2).
- Then print fib(0) + fib(1) + …………fib(n).
Code:
C++ Code
#include<bits/stdc++.h>
using namespace std;
int main() {
int n = 5;
if (n == 0) {
cout << 0;
} else if (n == 1) {
cout << 0 << " " << 1 << "\n";
} else {
int fib[n + 1];
fib[0] = 0;
fib[1] = 1;
for (int i = 2; i <= n; i++) {
fib[i] = fib[i - 1] + fib[i - 2];
}
cout<<"The Fibonacci Series up to "<<n<<"th term:"<<endl;
for (int i = 0; i <= n; i++) {
cout << fib[i] << " ";
}
}
}
Output:
The Fibonacci Series up to 5th term:
0 1 1 2 3 5
Time Complexity: O(n)+O(n), for calculating and printing the Fibonacci series.
Space Complexity: O(n), for storing Fibonacci series.
Java Code
public class TUF {
public static void main(String args[]) {
int n = 5;
if (n == 0) {
System.out.println(0);
} else {
int fib[] = new int[n + 1];
fib[0] = 0;
fib[1] = 1;
for (int i = 2; i <= n; i++) {
fib[i] = fib[i - 1] + fib[i - 2];
}
System.out.println("The Fibonacci Series up to "+n+"th term:");
for (int i = 0; i <= n; i++) {
System.out.print(fib[i] + " ");
}
}
}
}
Output:
The Fibonacci Series up to 5th term:
0 1 1 2 3 5
Time Complexity: O(n)+O(n), for calculating and printing the Fibonacci series.
Space Complexity: O(n), for storing Fibonacci series.
Solution 2: Space optimized
Intuition: For calculating the ith term we only need the last and second last term i.e (i-1)th and (i-2)th term, so we don’t need to maintain the whole array.
Approach:
- Take two variables last and secondLast for storing (i-1)th and (i-2)th term.
- Now iterate from 2 to n and calculate the ith term. ith term is last + secondLast term.
- Then update secondLast term to the last term and the last term to ith term as we iterate.
Code:
C++ Code
#include<bits/stdc++.h>
using namespace std;
int main() {
int n = 5;
if (n == 0) {
cout<<"The Fibonacci Series up to "<<n<<"th term:"<<endl;
cout << 0;
}
else {
int secondLast = 0;//for (i-2)th term
int last = 1;//for (i-1)th term
cout<<"The Fibonacci Series up to "<<n<<"th term:"<<endl;
cout << secondLast << " " << last << " ";
int cur; //for ith term
for (int i = 2; i <= n; i++) {
cur = last + secondLast;
secondLast = last;
last = cur;
cout << cur << " ";
}
}
}
The Fibonacci Series up to 5th term:
0 1 1 2 3 5
Time Complexity: O(N).As we are iterating over just one for a loop.
Space Complexity: O(1).
Java Code
public class TUF {
public static void main(String args[]) {
int n = 5;
if (n == 0) {
System.out.println("The Fibonacci Series up to "+n+"th term:");
System.out.print(0);
} else {
int secondLast = 0;
int last = 1;
System.out.println("The Fibonacci Series up to "+n+"th term:");
System.out.print(secondLast + " " + last + " ");
int cur;
for (int i = 2; i <= n; i++) {
cur = last + secondLast;
secondLast = last;
last = cur;
System.out.print(cur + " ");
}
}
}
}
Output:
The Fibonacci Series up to 5th term:
0 1 1 2 3 5
Time Complexity: O(N).As we are iterating over just one for a loop.
Space Complexity: O(1).
Solution 3
Intuition:
In this approach, instead of printing the Fibonacci series till N, we’re going to print the Nth Fibonacci number using functional recursion with multiple function calls.
One may wonder how multiple-function calls work. Let’s understand through an illustration below:

Similar kinds of multiple-function calls would be used in implementing the Fibonacci series where any Nth Fibonacci number can be written as a sum of (N-1)th and (N-2)th Fibonacci numbers. So, the function result would look like this:
Fibonacci(N) = Fibonacci(N-1) + Fibonacci(N-2)
Results from both the function calls would be summed and returned to the main function call.
Approach:
- Similar to all the recursion problems we’ve seen before, we need a base case in this problem too in order for recursion to not go infinitely. Here, we notice that the Fibonacci series start from N = 1, where we initialize its value as 1.
- Assume Fibonacci(0) = 0. So, Fibonacci(2) = 1+0 = 1 as the Nth Fibonacci number is the sum of the previous two Fibonacci numbers.
- Similarly, we call Fibonacci(N-1) and Fibonacci(N-2) and return their sum. Both the function calls Fibonacci(N-1) and Fibonacci(N-2) would be computed individually one by one until the base condition is reached for both and then they return back to the main function.
Let us see the recursion tree for the following problem to get an even better understanding:

Code:
C++ Code
#include<bits/stdc++.h>
using namespace std;
int fibonacci(int N){
// Base Condition.
if(N <= 1)
{
return N;
}
// Problem broken down into 2 functional calls
// and their results combined and returned.
int last = fibonacci(N-1);
int slast = fibonacci(N-2);
return last + slast;
}
int main(){
// Here, let’s take the value of N to be 4.
int N = 4;
cout<<fibonacci(N)<<endl;
return 0;
}
Time Complexity: O(2^N) { This problem involves two function calls for each iteration which further expands to 4 function calls and so on which makes worst-case time complexity to be exponential in nature }.
Space Complexity: O(N) { At maximum there could be N function calls waiting in the recursion stack since we need to calculate the Nth Fibonacci number for which we also need to calculate (N-1) Fibonacci numbers before it }.
Java Code
class Recursion {
static int fibonacci(int N){
// Base Condition.
if(N <= 1){
return N;
}
// Problem broken down into 2 functional calls
// and their results combined and returned.
int last = fibonacci(N-1);
int slast = fibonacci(N-2);
return last + slast;
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
// Here, let’s take the value of N to be 4.
int N = 4;
System.out.println(fibonacci(N));
}
}
Time Complexity: O(2^N) { This problem involves two function calls for each iteration which further expands to 4 function calls and so on which makes worst-case time complexity to be exponential in nature }.
Space Complexity: O(N) { At maximum there could be N function calls waiting in the recursion stack since we need to calculate the Nth Fibonacci number for which we also need to calculate (N-1) Fibonacci numbers before it }.
Special thanks to Pranav Padawe and Priyanshi Goel for contributing to this article on takeUforward. If you also wish to share your knowledge with the takeUforward fam, please check out this article