Hm. looks like I misunderstood the task. For me 'number of times you must multiply' still means the number of *s :)
Anyway. Thanks for clarification.

No, you' counting the wrong thing there.

edit: ninja

Don't count the *. Count the operations you had to perform. 9*9*9 is one operation. 7*2*9 is one operation etc.

Hi :) Why do you think it is four?
Could you please count the number of '*' in my original question? I assume it is exactly the 'number of times you multiplied to get to one digit', right? And I can see there 7 *s. Do you see something different?
Please note, that sample about 999 comes from the task description. So I think it is a typo there.

Regards,

Hi

It should be 4. Why do you think it should be 7? Count the number of times you multiplied to get to one digit.