Programming Fundamentals
Understanding Loops
Loops
• Loops provide a way to repeat one or more
statements as many times as our application requires
until a particular condition is met
• The statements inside a loop are called iteration
statements
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Loops
• Two essential elements of a loop:
1. Statement or block of statements that forms the
body of the loop, to be executed repeatedly
2. A loop condition of some kind that determines
when to stop repeating the loop
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Loops
• A loop condition can take a number of different forms,
to provide different ways of controlling the loop
– Execute the loop for a given number of times
– Execute the loop until a given value exceeds another
value
– Execute the loop until a particular character is entered
from the keyboard
• We can set the loop condition to suit the
circumstances
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Types of Loops
• There are three different kinds of loop in C++.
– The while loop
– The do-while loop
– The for loop
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while loop
Condition No
while(condition) is true?
{
Yes
// iteration statement(s)
Loop
} //end of while loop Statement(s)
Next Statement
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while loop
• If the condition controlling the loop
produces an integer, the loop will continue
as long as the value is non-zero
• Any non-zero integer is converted to type
bool as true , and only 0 converts to false
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The do-while Loop
do
{ Loop
Statement(s)
// iteration statement (s)
} while (condition);
Condition Yes
is true?
No
This semicolon is
absolutely compulsory
Next Statement
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More Complex while Loop
conditions
• while (choice ==‘y’ || choice ==‘Y’)
• while (tolower(choice) ==‘y’)
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This expression is The for loop
Executed once, at the This expression is evaluated
beginning of the loop. at the end of each loop iteration.
It is typically used to It is typically used to modify
initialize one Or more the values of Variables initialized
loop variables in the First expression
for(initializing_expression; condition; iteration_expression )
{
The semi-colons must be present.
//iteration statement (s) The expression need not be
} //end of for loop
This expression is evaluated
at the beginning of each loop
iteration. If it is true the loop
continues, and if it is false
execution with the statements
after the loop
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The for loop
Evaluate
Initialization Flow chart
expression
Condition No
is true?
Yes
Loop
Statement(s)
Evaluate
Iteration
expression
Next Statement
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Loops and Variable Scope
• for loop, like while and do-while loops, defines a
scope
• The loop statement or block, as well as any
expressions used to control the loop, all fall within the
scope of a loop
• This includes all three expressions used to control for
loop
• Any automatic variables declared within the scope of
a loop do not exist outside the loop
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Loops and Variable Scope
• The variable i, declared in the for loop
initialization expression is destroyed when the
loop ends (in example)
• Therefore, variable i in the for loop example
cannot be referenced after the loops ends
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Nested Loops
• We can place a loop inside another loop
• We can ‘nest’ loops to whatever depth we require for
solving a problem
• Nested loops can be of any kind:
• A for loop, inside a while loop inside a do-while
loop, they can be mixed in any way we want
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Skipping loop Iteration
• If we want to skip one iteration of the loop
and jump onto the next iteration we make use
of continue statement.
continue;
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Breaking Out of a Loop
• If we want to end the loop prematurely,
• The break statement will be used
break;
• Its effect is same as we saw in the switch statement
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Indefinite Loops
• An indefinite loop can potentially run forever
• If we leave out the test conditions in for loop,
it runs forever
• Indefinite loop is useful when we don’t know
in advance how many iterations are required
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Summary
• A loop is a mechanism for repeating a block of statements
• There are three kinds of loop that we can use: while, do-while
and for
• The while loop repeats for as long as a specified condition is
true
• The do-while loop always performs at least one iteration, and
continues for as long as a specified condition is true
• The for loop is typically used to repeat a given number of times,
and has three expressions
• Any kind of loop may be nested within any other kind
• Executing a continue statement within a loop will skip the
remainder of the current iteration and go straight to the next
iteration
• Executing a break statement within a loop will cause an
immediate exit from the loop
• A loop defines a scope, so that variables declared within loop
are not accessible outside the loop. Variables declared in the
initialization expression of for loop are not accessible outside
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