Draw an M-shaped pattern with nested loops

Question

I just started Python 2.7 very recently, but I\'m stuck at this a problem:

Make a program that prints an \"M\" pattern of asterisks. The user shall in

Answer 1

I imagine this problem as two triangles overlapping each other. You can write two functions that checks whether a coordinate is in a triangle. For example, this code

 for i in range(n):
   for j in range(n):
     if left(i,j):
       print '*',
     else:
       print '.',
   print

gives this output:

 * . . . . . .
 * * . . . . .
 * * * . . . .
 * * * * . . .
 * * * * * . .
 * * * * * * .
 * * * * * * *

Changing left to right gives the mirror image:

 . . . . . . *
 . . . . . * *
 . . . . * * *
 . . . * * * *
 . . * * * * *
 . * * * * * *
 * * * * * * *

Once you've figured out the correct implementation of left and right, just combine the two as left(i,j) or right(i,j) to get the M shape:

 * . . . . . *
 * * . . . * *
 * * * . * * *
 * * * * * * *
 * * * * * * *
 * * * * * * *
 * * * * * * *