Armstrong (narcissistic) numbers generator

This Python script is designed to find Armstrong (narcissistic) numbers up to a range of $10^n$, where $n$ is a parameter of the armstrong() function.

In essence, this script uses a multiset approach (implemented via combination with replacement).

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Key-features of the script that aim to reduce the search space of the problem:

1. Precomputing: The powers list precomputes the ith power of all digits from 0 to 9 for i in the range ran+1. This avoids having to compute these powers repeatedly for each combination.

2. Combinations with replacement: The combinations_with_replacement function from the itertools module generates all combinations of a certain size from the digits 0 to 9, allowing each digit to be used more than once. This significantly reduces the search space compared to generating all permutations of the digits.

3. Checking sums early: The code calculates the sum of the ith powers of the digits in a combination (combval) and checks if this sum is greater than 9**i * i. If it is, it skips to the next combination. This avoids unnecessary computations for combinations that cannot possibly form an Armstrong number.

4. Sorting and comparing tuples: The code converts the sum of combval into a tuple of its digits (sumalist), sorts both sumalist and the combination, and checks if they're equal. This is a more efficient way to check if a combination forms an Armstrong number compared to generating all permutations of the combination.

5. Data structure: The code uses a set to store the results, which automatically takes care of duplicates and keeps the results sorted. This avoids having to check for duplicates or sort the results at the end.

6. Multiprocessing: The code uses Python's multiprocessing module to parallelize the computation across multiple cores, which can significantly speed up the computation for larger values.

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Example run times of the script for a given range on a low-tier machine (Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-6400 CPU @ 2.70GHz, 32 GB RAM):

$n$ as of $10^n$ range of search	execution time [in seconds]
1	0.20598888397216797
3	0.22899746894836426
4	0.19800066947937012
5	0.17897629737854004
6	0.21700048446655273
7	0.25499892234802246
8	0.27899932861328125
9	0.3490004539489746
10	0.5720007419586182
11	0.929999828338623
14	4.891000986099243
16	13.944048166275024
17	22.939016103744507
19	60.22201991081238
20	90.91005849838257
21	139.65165328979492
23	308.0671248435974
24	446.1013534069061
25	646.2790954113007
27	1464.0623307228088