Question

Using the while loop, I wrote a procedure that takes as input a positive whole number, and prints out a multiplication table showing all the whole number multiplications up to and including the input number. The order in which the equations are printed matters.

for example, print_multiplication_table(2) gives:
1 * 1
1 * 2
2 * 1
2 * 2

This is my code:

def print_multiplication_table(n):
    a = 1
    b = 1
    while a <= n:
        while b <= n:
            print str(a) + " * " + str(b)
            b = b + 1
        a = a + 1

However, this doesn’t seem to work as it only print out

1 * 1
1 * 2

Does anyone know why? thanks!

Answer 1

You need to initialize counter for inner loop before its execution

def print_multiplication_table(n):
    a = 1
    b = 1 # won't do harm, but doesn't really need now
    while a <= n:
        b = 1 # <-- note
        while b <= n:
            print str(a) + " * " + str(b)
            b = b + 1
        a = a + 1