The factorial of a number is the product of all the integers from 1 to that number.
For example, the factorial of 6 is
1*2*3*4*5*6 = 720
. Factorial is not defined for negative numbers, and the factorial of zero is one,
0! = 1
.
Factorial of a Number using Loop
# Python program to find the factorial of a number provided by the user.
# change the value for a different result
num = 7
# To take input from the user
#num = int(input("Enter a number: "))
factorial = 1
# check if the number is negative, positive or zero
if num < 0:
print("Sorry, factorial does not exist for negative numbers")
elif num == 0:
print("The factorial of 0 is 1")
else:
for i in range(1,num + 1):
factorial = factorial*i
print("The factorial of",num,"is",factorial)
Output
The factorial of 7 is 5040
Note:
To test the program for a different number, change the value of
num
.
Here, the number whose factorial is to be found is stored in
num
, and we check if the number is negative, zero or positive using
if...elif...else
statement. If the number is positive, we use
for
loop and
range()
function to calculate the factorial.
| iteration | factorial*i (returned value) |
| i = 1 | 1 * 1 = 1 |
| i = 2 | 1 * 2 = 2 |
| i = 3 | 2 * 3 = 6 |
| i = 4 | 6 * 4 = 24 |
| i = 5 | 24 * 5 = 120 |
| i = 6 | 120 * 6 = 720 |
| i = 7 | 720 * 7 = 5040 |
Factorial of a Number using Recursion
# Python program to find the factorial of a number provided by the user
# using recursion
def factorial(x):
"""This is a recursive function
to find the factorial of an integer"""
if x == 1:
return 1
else:
# recursive call to the function
return (x * factorial(x-1))
# change the value for a different result
num = 7
# to take input from the user
# num = int(input("Enter a number: "))
# call the factorial function
result = factorial(num)
print("The factorial of", num, "is", result)
In the above example,
factorial()
is a recursive function that calls itself. Here, the function will recursively call itself by decreasing the value of the
x
.
To learn about the working of recursion, visit Python recursion .
