如何将行与列分开？

Question

I'm supposed to have a program that should ask the user to enter a number of rows and a number of columns. The program will then print a pattern based on the user's input. The pattern must follows these rules: If the row is even numbered (2nd, 4th, etc.) and the column is even-numbered, then the character in that spot will be a blank or space character. Otherwise, the character in that spot will be an asterisk: "*"

This is what I have so far

# Ask the user for the number of rows
rows = int(input('How many rows? '))
# Ask the user for the number of columns
columns = int(input('How many columns? '))

# Iterate over the rows.
for row in range("--Fill this in--"):

    # Iterate over the columns.
    for col in range("--Fill this in--"):
        if "--Fill this in--" and "--Fill this in--":
            print(' ', end='')
        else:
            print('*', end='')

    # Go to the next row.
    print()

The "fill it in" are what I do not know what to input for the program to work; I know what the function is I just don't know what to put.

The output is supposed to look something like this

How many rows? 7
How many columns? 7
*******
* * * *
*******
* * * *
*******
* * * *
*******

Or something like this

How many rows? 6
How many columns? 12
************
* * * * * * 
************
* * * * * * 
************
* * * * * *

I was thinking maybe using an operator but I'm not really sure if an operator can be implemented here.

Answer 1

# Ask the user for the number of rows
rows = int(input('How many rows? '))
# Ask the user for the number of columns
columns = int(input('How many columns? '))

# Iterate over the rows.
for row in range(1, rows + 1):

    # Iterate over the columns.
    for col in range(1, columns + 1):
        if row % 2 == 0 and col % 2 == 0:
            print(' ', end='')
        else:
            print('*', end='')

    # Go to the next row.
    print()

How many rows? 7
How many columns? 7
*******
* * * *
*******
* * * *
*******
* * * *
*******