Super Tricky Code Challenge

Super-Tricky-Code-Challenge.php

<?php

  /** 
   * Fix the code: Add, Remove or Change 1 character to make this code print 3 pound signs "£££"
   * Here's the broken code that will run forever (do NOT uncomment this and run it!)...
   */
  //$n = 3;
  //for( $i = 0; $i < $n; $i-- ){
  //  print "&pound;";
  //}


  /**
   * Solution 1: Reduce the qualifyer with each iteration, not the index. 
   * (I got this one after about half an hour of having a thunk.)
   */
  $n = 3;
  for( $i = 0; $i < $n; $n-- ){
    print "&pound;";
  }


  /**
   * Solution 2: Add a minus character before the first variable in the condition to invert it. 
   * (Frustratingly I only bloody thought about doing this but didn't run the simulation clearly 
   * enough inside my bonce to see it working. I thought about negative zero being equal to zero 
   * and gave up on the idea. If I'd continued I'd have realized it would become negative negative 
   * 1 (eg positive 1), then negative negative 2, negeative negative 3 and then stop)
   */
  $n = 3;
  for( $i = 0; -$i < $n; $i-- ){
    print "&pound;";
  }


  /**
   * Solution 3: This is actually quite beautiful. 
   * Change the qualifyer to an addition operation which, when i reaches -3, will evaluate as falsey.
   * One of the coders at Softwire explained this to me and I facepalmed because again I'd thought 
   * of doing it but not for long enough. This whole experience has refreshed my knowledge of the for loop.
   */
  $n = 3;
  for( $i = 0; $i + $n; $i-- ){
    print "&pound;";
  }


  /**
   * Summary: This challenge is not designed to create good code, it's to get coders thinking laterally about
   * the for-loop. Everyone I have spoken to agrees these solutions are not good and changing the i-- to i++
   * would be the way to professionalise the code.
   */