2 
def divisors(n):
 ans =0
 for i in range(n):
 i += 1
 k=n%i
 if k!=1:
 ans=i
 return ans
print(20)

I have a function that's not working properly when I run it prints the n value instead of printing out the divisors.

Yu Hao
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asked Oct 10, 2015 at 15:43
4
  • What is the result you want? Commented Oct 10, 2015 at 15:46
  • so it should be printing out the divisors for 20 which would be 1,2,4,5,10,20 Commented Oct 10, 2015 at 15:47
  • 1
    The code has not called the def() function. It prints "20" just like you told it to. You might try print(divisors(20)), but that will only print the last ans value since divisors() does not return a list. Commented Oct 10, 2015 at 15:54
  • 1
    @AndreL I've rolled back the edit you made for a couple of reasons. The first and biggest was that your change to the code invalidated part of a legitimate answer and was not based on comments provided by the OP. If the code does not do what the OP claims it does, you may inadvertently hide the problem by making those sorts of changes to the code. Additionally, the other changes you made did not improve the post. It moved some text to a different place, but there were clear, obvious, low effort to fix grammatical and mechanical changes you could have made. Commented Oct 11, 2015 at 1:25

4 Answers 4

8

Three key issues are:

  1. k=n%i returns the remainder - if the remainder != 1 it doesn't mean that i is a divisor!
  2. in the for-loop you keep overriding ans and at the end of the function you return the value that was found on the last iteration that satisfied the if condition. What you want to do instead is to accumulate all the anss into a list and return that list.
  3. The print at the end is not calling the function - it simply prints the number 20.

I'm not posting a corrected solution because I think that it will be a good exercise for you to fix these bugs by yourself, good luck!

answered Oct 10, 2015 at 15:49
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4 Comments

def divisors(n): ans = [] for i in range(n): i += 1 if n % i == 0: ans.append(i) return ans
@user4574134 you got it :)
def divisors(n): ans = [] for i in range(n): i += 1 if n % i == 0: ans.append(i) return ans print(divisors([30])) this is not working when i enter 30 as a list value
@user4574134 the function receives an integer as an argument, why would you pass a list ?
3

I saved the result in a list:

def divisors(n):
 ans = []
 for i in range(n):
 i += 1
 k=n%i
 if k==0:
 ans.append(i)
 return ans
print divisors(20)
answered Oct 10, 2015 at 15:50

1 Comment

You missed something when cleaning your code. The function should return ans.
2

If you what a more elegant way you can use lists-comprehension, also you reduce it in one line.

def divisors(n):
 return [i+1 for i in range(n) if n%(i+1) == 0]
answered Oct 10, 2015 at 16:11

Comments

1

Try to use generator function with yield for that purpose:

def divisors(n):
 iterable = xrange(1, n + 1)
 for i in iterable:
 k = n % i
 if k == 0:
 ans = i
 yield ans
print list(divisors(20))
answered Oct 10, 2015 at 16:00

1 Comment

i think that is an advanced approach for the OP level, but its a good answer indeed.

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