forLoop does not accept negative step?

Question

I try to use \forLoop for a countdown sequence:

\documentclass{minimal}

\usepackage{forloop}
\usepackage{fmtcount}

\begin{document}
\newcounter{idx}
\forLoop[-1]{10}{1}{idx}{\numberstring{idx}\\}
\end{document}

But this simply does not do anything. If the step is positive, everything is fine. I looked up the documentation for forloop and in the implementation \addtocounter was used to increment/decrement the counter. \addtocounter accepts negative values and effectively adds them to a specified counter.

So my question is: what am I doing wrong here?

Answer 1

\forLoop does \addtocounter only if the condition \value{idx}<1, with your settings, is satisfied, which is never. The package documentation tells that \forLoop is deprecated. So

\forloop[-1]{idx}{10}{\value{idx}>0}{\arabic{idx}}

should be your choice.