Python Tutorial - 6 - Loops and Iterations

Loops and Iterations: For - While Loops

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• File: loops and iterations.md
• Project: 6_loops-iterations
• File Created: Sunday, 12th March 2023 9:28:08 pm
• Author: Hanlin Gu (hg_fine_codes@163.com)

---

• Last Modified: Wednesday, 15th March 2023 5:03:11 pm
• Modified By: Hanlin Gu (hg_fine_codes@163.com>)
  */

1. for loop

for loop: print all the elements in a list

nums = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

for num in nums:
    print(num)

Output:

1
2
3
4
5

1.1. break

break statement breaks out of the loop. It will not continue execute the code after break in the for loop.

nums = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

for num in nums:
    if num == 3:
        print('Found!')
        break
    print(num)

Output:

1
2
Found!

1.2. continue

If one wants to ignore a value without break out of the loop completely, one can use continue statement. continue will skip to the next iteration of a loop.

nums = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

for num in nums:
    if num == 3:
        print('Found!')
        continue
    print(num)

Output:

1
2
Found!
4
5

When the program meets continue, it goes to the next iteration directly. Without continue, it will run through that iteration and then go to the next one.

nums = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

for num in nums:
    if num == 3:
        print('Found!')
    print(num)

Output:

1
2
Found!
3
4
5

1.3. Nested loop: loop within a loop

# Nested loop: loop within a loop
nums = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

for num in nums:
    for letter in 'abc':
        print(num, letter)

Output:

1 a
1 b
1 c
2 a
2 b
2 c
3 a
3 b
3 c
4 a
4 b
4 c
5 a
5 b
5 c

1.4. range(n)

Run through a loop for a certain number of times, one can use the build in function range().

for i in range(10):
    print(i)

Output:

0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

If one wants to start from 1, and goes to 10, then use range(1, 11).

for i in range(1, 11):
    print(i)

Output:

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

2. while loop

while loop runs until certain condition is met or get a break.

x = 0

while x < 10:
    print(x)
    x += 1

Output:

0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

2.1. break in while loop

x = 0

while x < 10:
    if x == 5:
        break
    print(x)
    x += 1

Output:

0
1
2
3
4

2.2. Infinite loop

Sometimes, one would like to create an infinite loop that never ends until one gets some input or finds some values. To create an infinite loop, simply to replace the conditional statement of while into True.

x = 0

while True:
    if x == 5:
        break
    print(x)
    x += 1

Output:

0
1
2
3
4

If one accidentally get stucked in a infinite loop, in general ctrl + c will terminate the process.