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iOS Objective-C Basics (Retired) Functional Programming in C While & Do While Loop

Posted by Justine Lam
Justine Lam
8,785 Points

While loop vs For loop

Why would I used a while loop instead of a for loop in real life?

2 Answers

Stone Preston
Stone Preston
42,016 Points
Stone Preston
Stone Preston
42,016 Points

sometimes one loop does the job better than the other. For instance if you were making a game and needed to make the game loop over and over, you could use a while loop that would run infinitely by using

while (i = 1) {

and then never changing i. or if you only wanted to do something while the user was using the mouse you could use something along the lines of

while (mouseIsMoving()) {

For loops (and for each loops especially) are definitely more common, but sometimes you just need a while loop to get the job done.

Andrew Shook
Andrew Shook
31,709 Points
Andrew Shook
Andrew Shook
31,709 Points

Out posted me by seconds. Darn you meddling MODS!

bronnyreinhardt
bronnyreinhardt
1,007 Points

Hi, I had the same question as Justine but I'm still curious about the difference between a for and a while loop.

I understand that the for loop is for 'making counter-controlled loops', as the preamble to the lesson states.

In the preamble to the while loop lesson, the preamble states that it's for 'executing a block of code without providing any construct for keeping a counter'.

I think my confusion stems from the fact that both code examples have the same type of conditional expression ('If the indexing variable is less than three ...') so I can't see how they're different.

What part of the for example used in the for loops lesson, exactly, is the 'construct [that keeps] a counter'?

Andrew Shook
Andrew Shook
31,709 Points
Andrew Shook
Andrew Shook
31,709 Points

Milly Main, the variable inside the parentheses of the for loop, usually "i" in most examples, is the construct that keeps the counter. So in this for loop:

<?php
for($i = 0; $i < 20; $i ++;){
    // do something
}

$i = 0 initializes the counter, $i less than 20 check the condition of the counter, and $i ++ increments the counter when appropriate.

bronnyreinhardt
bronnyreinhardt
1,007 Points

Thanks Andrew Shook

Andrew Shook
Andrew Shook
31,709 Points
Andrew Shook
Andrew Shook
31,709 Points

You would use a while loop to loop through code while some condition is true (like boolean true). For instance, my old game where built using a do...while loop. So the code would run once (start the level), and while (playerAlive == true) the main game loop would keep going ( this is how something like the original Super Mario was programmed).

A for loop is mostly used to loop through a piece of a given number of time ( the length of an array or x number of time /5). Note that the condition for a for loop must still be true, but the condition is usually testing a numeric value and not a boolean. Although while loops can also test numerics.

Justine Lam
Justine Lam
8,785 Points

Neat, I didn't know that about while loops being able to handle booleans. Why can't for loops handle them? Is it because of how for loops are constructed?

Andrew Shook
Andrew Shook
31,709 Points
Andrew Shook
Andrew Shook
31,709 Points

Yes and no. Technically, for loops can handle a boolean. In fact, you can write a for loop like this:

for(;;;){
    ///do something
}

This will cause an infinite loop. You can also write a for loop like this:

for( ; true; ;){
    //do something
}

This will also cause an infinite loop since there is nothing to that wil ever set the condition to false. Finally, building off that last example you could write a for loop like this:

bool test = true;
int i = 0
for ( ; test; ){
    //do something
    if( i == 5){
        test = false;
    }
    i++;
}

This code will work ( this is just sudo-code so it would not actually work), but you had to declare two variable to make the loop when you could have just done this:

for( i = 0; i =< 5; i++){
    // do something
}

As you can see, you can use a boolean in a for loop but its not really practical. Its more practical to loop a boolean in a while loop:

bool playerAlive =  true;

function checkCollission(){
    if ( didCollideWithNPC()){
        playerAlive = false;
    }
}
do{
    // main code for super mario
    // calls all the functions to control movement, graphics and sound effects
    checkCollision();
}while(playerAlive); //this part of the loop will keep the game going until the player hits an NPC then the game stops.