Solved: Compound interest exercise not working for n = 1

Course Discussions Python Course
#1

Can someone please help tell me what is wrong here? The lab is telling me to review whether the code for case n=1 is right. I’m getting the right output for test case n = 1 so I’m not sure what is wrong.

def compound_interest(principle, rate, years):
    rate = float(rate)/100
    years = int(years)
    interest = 0
    total_interest = 0
    newprinciple = principle
    principle = principle
    year = 1
    while year <= years:
        if year == 1:
            interest = principle * rate
            newprinciple = principle + interest
            total_interest = total_interest + interest
            year = year + 1
        else:
            interest = newprinciple * rate
            newprinciple = newprinciple + interest
            total_interest = total_interest + interest
            year = year + 1
    print(total_interest)
    
compound_interest(100,5,1)
#2

Hi Gopi,

You approach is correct just that instead of printing it is supposed to return the value.

1 Like
#3

Thank you that worked. I changed print to return and it worked

#4

Solved:

def compound_interest(principle, rate, years):
    rate = float(rate)/100
    years = int(years)
    interest = 0
    total_interest = 0
    newprinciple = principle
    principle = principle
    year = 1
    while year &lt;= years:
        if year == 1:
            interest = principle * rate
            newprinciple = principle + interest
            total_interest = total_interest + interest
            year = year + 1
        else:
            interest = newprinciple * rate
            newprinciple = newprinciple + interest
            total_interest = total_interest + interest
            year = year + 1
    return (total_interest)

compound_interest(100,5,1)
1 Like
#5

Here is a more crisper version of the solution:

def compound_interest(principle, rate, years):
    np = principle
    for i in range(years):
        np += np * rate / 100
    return (np - principle)
2 Likes
#6

Thanks @Kamal_Upadhyay for the neat version

I have just updated the code to fix the indentation so that we can copy-paste in the notebook as it is.

#7

Thank you Kamal. Great solution.