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Jonathan Martinez
Full Stack JavaScript Techdegree Student 6,439 PointsFor loop vs. Do/While loop vs. While Loop
Hi, I wouldn't particularly say I'm completely new to JavaScript, but I'm new enough to not understand when and where you would use different loop types. My understanding of for loops is far better than my understanding of do/while or while loops. So my question is, is there a place I can go or read up on to figure out why I would need each different loop? The open sesame exercise in the previous lesson was extremely confusing to me and seemed way complicated.
2 Answers
Jonathan Vargas
16,134 PointsYou use the loop that is best suited for the job. For example, if you know exactly how many times you want to iterate(loop) over something then you would go ahead and use the for loop. looping 10 times to print 1 through 10 would be a good example of when to use a for loop. Now the Do While loop would be used when you have no idea how many times you would need to loop over something. Lets say that you built a form and your user is signing in, you want to keep asking for the login credentials UNTIL he enters the right credentials. In this case you aren't really sure whether it will take him three tries before he enters the right username and password or get it right on the first attempt.
jag
18,266 PointsThere are a lot of examples on MDN.
Jonathan Martinez
Full Stack JavaScript Techdegree Student 6,439 PointsJonathan Martinez
Full Stack JavaScript Techdegree Student 6,439 PointsThat actually makes a lot of sense. So just so I understand, if the amount of times you had to run through the loop was unknown, you would want to use a do while loop because we technically wouldn't have any idea how many times a user would enter the correct information, but in the case of where you have a form and the form says, you have 4 more times to enter the correct information, you would use a for loop. Correct?
Jonathan Vargas
16,134 PointsJonathan Vargas
16,134 PointsYes exactly!