def digits(n):
total=0
for i in range(0,n):
if n/(10**(i))<1 and n/(10**(i-1))=>1:
total+=i
else:
total+=0
return total
print digits(13)
it gives me $\0$ for every number I input into the function. there's nothing wrong with what I've written as far as I can see:
if a number has say 4 digits say 1234 then dividing by 10^4 will make it less than 1: 0.1234 and dividing by 10^3 will make it 1.234 and by 10^3 will make it 1.234>1. when i satisfies BOTH conditions you know you have the correct number of digits. what's failing here? Please can you advise me on the specific method I've tried and not a different one? Remember for every n there can only be one i which satisfies that condition. so when you add i to the total there will only be i added so total returning total will give you i
your loop makes no sense at all. It goes from 0 to exact number - not what you want.
It looks like python, so grab a solution that uses string:
def digits(n):
return len(str(int(n))) # make sure that it's integer, than conver to string and return number of characters == number of digits
EDIT: If you REALLY want to use a loop to count number of digits, you can do this this way:
def digits(n):
i = 0
while (n > 1):
n = n / 10
++i
return i
EDIT2:
since you really want to make your solution work, here is your problem. Provided, that you call your function like digits(5), 5 is of type integer, so your division is integer-based. That means, that 6/100 = 0, not 0.06.
def digits(n):
for i in range(0,n):
if n/float(10**(i))<1 and n/float(10**(i-1))=>1:
return i # we don't need to check anything else, this is the solution
return null # we don't the answer. This should not happen, but still, nice to put it here. Throwing an exception would be even better