Question

Anybody care to check this code and make sure it's correct? It works in any situation I've tried, looking for holes....
Question from OCW 6.189, Homework 1.8 #3:
Write a program using a for loop that calculates exponentials. Your program should ask the user for a base 'base' and an exponent 'exp', and calculate base^exp.

#if y is negative (< 0) then it is 1/x*x
#if y is positive (> 0) then it is x*x
#if y = 0 then answer is 1

x = input("Choose your base: ")
y = input("Choose your expo: ")


if y>0:
print x**y
elif y<0:
print 1/x**y
else:
print 1

Answer 1

in your question,calculate exponential using for loop..so try following steps to find exponential..
for num in range(1,exp): # loop will move from 1 to exponet value.
value=value*base #multiply base exp times
print 'the exponential value is* %d' % (value)

Answer 2

Ok, here's the revised code. I've tested it a bunch of times, and it all works:
x = input("Choose your base: ")
y = input("Choose your expo: ")
value = 1

for num in range(y):
value = value*x
print value

However I still need some help. First of all, is there a more succinct/efficient way of writing this code? I'm sure there is. Secondly, I'm confused as to why my old code wasn't working. My old code looked like this:
x = input("Choose your base: ")
y = input("Choose your expo: ")

for x in range(y):
x = x*x
print x

And I would get answers like this:
base = 3
expo = 3
0
1
4

I'm just wondering why it would give me those answers. Thanks for the help in advance, you guys are awesome.