How to display the number of iterations a while loop does?

I'm trying to display the number of iterations a while loop goes through but I can't seem to figure it out. here's my code so far:

P = 250000;
A = 25000;
I = 4.5/100;
while P > A;
    P = P*(1+I)-A;
    P = P + 1;
end

I'm getting the correct amount of iterations but its outputting it as the 14 actual values rather than "14"

thanks

[Wing Lin]

You can create a separate variable to store the number of iterations that your loop has run. For example,

count = 0; % kind of important to start at 0 for an accurate count
loopStart = 1; % arbitrary
loopEnd = 10; % arbitrary
while loopStart < loopEnd
  count = count + 1; % this increments by 1 each time the loop executes
  loopStart = loopStart + 5; % 5 is just some arbitrary constant that I chose to increment by
end
count % this should display 2 for this specific example

[Image Analyst]

Since this is your answer, Wing, you should put it down in the Answers section, so you can get credit for it, rather than as a comment up here (which is usually just used to ask the poster for clarification of the question).

Answer 1

[Image Analyst]

Try adding a loop counter:

P = 250000;
A = 25000;
I = 4.5/100;
counter = 1;
while P > A
    P = P*(1+I)-A;
    P = P + 1;
    fprintf('Just finished iteration #%d\n', counter);
    counter = counter + 1;
end

[alexandra pavliuc]

Is it possible to set a maximum number of times you want the while loop to run? ie. move on after counter reaches 10?

[Image Analyst]

Yes. Just use this code

P = 250000;
A = 25000;
I = 4.5/100;
counter = 1;
while P > A && counter < 10
    P = P*(1+I)-A;
    P = P + 1;
    fprintf('Just finished iteration #%d\n', counter);
    counter = counter + 1;
end

[Niklas Kurz]

How to display just the total count-number?

[Walter Roberson]

P = 250000;
A = 25000;
I = 4.5/100;
counter = 1;
while P > A && counter < 10
    P = P*(1+I)-A;
    P = P + 1;
    counter = counter + 1;
end
fprintf('finished %d iterations\n', counter);