How do I reduce the number of (the same) characters printed in each line using a loop?

Question

Basically, I am trying to print lines of characters, specifically asterisks. Every subsequent line should have one less asterisk than the previous line. Additionally, they should all be aligned to the right . My knowledge of Java is not too strong, so bear with me.

Here's an image of the output and the instructions:

Answer 1

Let's start off with a simpler example:

***
 **
  *

What pattern do you see? The pattern is that on each line, the sum of the amount of asterisks and the amount of spaces is constant. I'll call this constant L for now on, which stands of the line length .
From this, we can infer that amountOfSpaces is L - amountOfAsterisks , and vice versa (as the magical laws of Algebra also apply here).

So from this, we can deduce that on each line we need to print L - amountOfAsterisks spaces first, and then amountOfAsterisks . For cases like these, for loops are a life-saver (In more professional code (as professional as you can get with fancy terminal graphics) this would be done a bit differently, as in actuality using for -loops for such a thing makes the function O(N) ).

The rest is up to you

Answer 2

Can modify the variables as you see fit. Key is to use a bunch of for loops and keep track of all the variables.

for (int i = 0; i < 8; i++) { //line number your on
    for(int k = 0; k<i;k++)//keeps track of number of spaces to use, line number minus 1 spaces printed
    {
    System.out.print(" ");
    }
for (int j = 8; j >i; j--) {//prints out 8 * and reduced by 1*line number
System.out.print("*"); 
}
System.out.println();//prints new line and initiates new line by i++
}