Converting C code to MIPS - Iterative Factorial Function

Question

I'm pretty new to programming, only a few months in and was just fiddling around with some Assembly code. I ran into a problem with my MIPS code and I narrowed the problem down to my loop after printing the value of each variable. It only prints 1 as the result of any integer input. Essentially I am trying to convert this:

int fac(int k) {
    int i, f = 1;
    for (i = 1; i <= k; i++) {
        f = f * i;
    }
    return f;
}

To this:

fac:
    move $t4, $t0 #$t0 is the input from the user and $t4 is k in the C code
    li $t1, 1 #$t1 is f in the C code, initialising it to 1
    li $t2, 1 #$t2 is i in the C code, declaring it as 1
    loop:
    ble $t2, $t4, end_loop #i<=k, end the loop
    mul $t1, $t1, $t2 #f=f*i
    addi $t2, $t2, 1
    j loop
    end_loop:

I tested the code by putting in a bunch of print statements and was able to get $t4 and $t0, as the input but both $t1, and $t2 remain as 1 after the loop. Do I have to jump into the loop?

Answer 1

ble $t2, $t4, end_loop #i<=k, end the loop

No, the second part of a C for statement is the condition for which you want to continue the loop, not end it.

What you are doing here is not even entering the body of the loop, which is why $t1 and $t2 stay the same value as you initialised them to.

You probably want to use bgt rather than ble.