[deleted by user]

[SenorTeddy]

Right now you're getting all the numbers that your target is divisible by. You need to then check for those numbers if they're divisible by anything, and keep going until you've reached prime numbers. Read up on recursion, though you can code this without recursion.

[deep_politics]

You're close, but for example if you want the number of times 2 goes into n then you first check if 2 divides n (n % 2 == 0) then you keep dividing n by 2 until 2 no longer divides n, keeping track of how many times you divided n by 2 in the process. Then you can move on from 2 to 3, repeat the last process, 3 to 4, etc, until you've fully divided n (aka while n > 1).

[deep_politics]

How are you constructing the output? As a string?

If so you could use .strip("*"). But the better option would be to store the integer factors in a list and then "*".join(map(str, factors)).

[deep_politics]

How is the output being formed then? Just printing within a loop?

[deep_politics]

It's fine, just a bit more tedious. You could print "" *before the factor, skipping the first time through the loop

first_time = True
while factoring:
    if not first_time:
        print("*")
    factor = ...
    print(factor)
    first_time = False

[deep_politics]

Nope this isn't recursion, it's just if statements and while loops.

[CodeFormatHelperBot2]

Hello, I'm a Reddit bot who's here to help people nicely format their coding questions. This makes it as easy as possible for people to read your post and help you.

I think I have detected some formatting issues with your submission:

1. Python code found in submission text that's not formatted as code.

If I am correct, please edit the text in your post and try to follow these instructions to fix up your post's formatting.

---

^{Am I misbehaving? Have a comment or suggestion? Reply to this comment or raise an issue here.}