Python Prime number checker

Question

This question already has answers here:

Answer 1

You need to stop iterating once you know a number isn't prime. Add a break once you find prime to exit the while loop.

Making only minimal changes to your code to make it work:

a=2
num=13
while num > a :
  if num%a==0 & a!=num:
    print('not prime')
    break
  i += 1
else: # loop not exited via break
  print('prime')

Your algorithm is equivalent to:

for a in range(a, num):
    if a % num == 0:
        print('not prime')
        break
else: # loop not exited via break
    print('prime')

If you throw it into a function you can dispense with break and for-else:

def is_prime(n):
    for i in range(3, n):
        if n % i == 0:
            return False
    return True

Even if you are going to brute-force for prime like this you only need to iterate up to the square root of n. Also, you can skip testing the even numbers after two.

With these suggestions:

import math
def is_prime(n):
    if n % 2 == 0 and n > 2: 
        return False
    for i in range(3, int(math.sqrt(n)) + 1, 2):
        if n % i == 0:
            return False
    return True

Note that this code does not properly handle 0, 1, and negative numbers.

We make this simpler by using all with a generator expression to replace the for-loop.

import math
def is_prime(n):
    if n % 2 == 0 and n > 2: 
        return False
    return all(n % i for i in range(3, int(math.sqrt(n)) + 1, 2))