Question

I have a project where I have to write a program that prompts the user for an initial investment amount and a goal investment amount and calculate how many years it will take to grow from the initial amount to the goal amount with a fixed interest rate (ie: 5 %). (use the WHILE loop). Print out the results from each year. For example, if you chose to invest $1,000 for 5 years:
Year 1 1005
Year 2 1011
Etc:

I was able to compile the java program but I was only able to prompt the user for an initial investment and goal investment with a 5% interest. The output was incorrect. What am I doing incorrect? Here is my code.

import static java.lang.System.out;
import java.util.Scanner;
import java.io.*;

public class Investment_Calculator {//main
public static void main(String[] args) {//begins body

double principal = 1;//initial amount investing
double interest = 1;
double rate = 0.05;//the fixed interest amount
int years = 1;//amout of years it will take to achieve goal
double goal = 1;
double total = 1;

Scanner myScanner = new Scanner(System.in);

System.out.println("*************************************** ");
System.out.println("* Welcome to the Investment Calculator * ");
System.out.println("*************************************** ");

System.out.println ("Enter your initial investment amount: if you want to exit enter   0.");
int inputNumber = myScanner.nextInt();
principal = inputNumber; 

if (inputNumber == 0){//if num = 0 exit class

System.exit(0);
}

System.out.println ("Enter your goal investment amount: ");
int inputNumber2 = myScanner.nextInt ();
goal = inputNumber2;

System.out.println ("The fixed interest rate is 5%");

total= principal; // start with our initial amount of money
for (; total < goal; total= (1+interest)*total);   

{   System.out.print("The number of years you must invest to meet your goal of $ ");
 System.out.print(goal);
 System.out.print(" is");   
 System.out.println(years);
 System.out.println(" years");

} 
}

}

Answer 1

for (; total < goal; total= (1+interest)*total);

You have a semi-colon at the end of this loop. Remove it.

Because of that, your next set of print statements after for loop becomes an unnamed block: –

{   
 System.out.print("The number of years you must invest to meet your goal of $ ");
 System.out.print(goal);
 System.out.print(" is");   
 System.out.println(years);
 System.out.println(" years");

    years++;  <-- // Increment `years` here.
} 

And those will be executed only once.

---

UPDATE: –

You can use the below code to get the totalInterest for each year and the final output

int years = 1;
while (principal <= goal) {
    double totalInterest = principal * rate * years / 100.0;
    principal = principal + totalInterest;

    System.out.println("Interest amount for year: " + years + 
                       " = " + totalInterest);

    years++;
}

System.out.print("The number of years you must invest to meet your goal of $ ");
System.out.print(goal);
System.out.print(" is");   
System.out.println(years);
System.out.println(" years");