Python en:Control Flow

Python en:Control Flow

Introduction

In the programs we have seen till now, there has always been a series of statements and

Python faithfully executes them in the same order. What if you wanted to change the flow of

how it works? For example, you want the program to take some decisions and do different

things depending on different situations such as printing 'Good Morning' or 'Good Evening'

depending on the time of the day?

As you might have guessed, this is achieved using  control flow statements. There are three

control flow statements in Python -  if,  for and  while.

The if statement

The if statement is used to check a condition and if the condition is true, we run a block of

statements (called the if-block), else we process another block of statements (called the

else-block). The else clause is optional.

Example:

#!/usr/bin/python

# Filename: if.py

number = 23

guess = int(input('Enter an integer : '))

if guess == number:

    print('Congratulations, you guessed it.') # New block starts here

    print('(but you do not win any prizes!)') # New block ends here

elif guess < number:

    print('No, it is a little higher than that') # Another block

    # You can do whatever you want in a block ...

else:

    print('No, it is a little lower than that')

# you must have guess > number to reach here

print('Done')

# This last statement is always executed, after the if statement is executed

Output:

$ python if.py

Enter an integer : 50

No, it is a little lower than that

Done

$ python if.py

Enter an integer : 22

No, it is a little higher than that

Done

$ python if.py

Enter an integer : 23

Congratulations, you guessed it.

(but you do not win any prizes!)

Done

How It Works:

In this program, we take guesses from the user and check if it is the number that we have.

We set the variable number to any integer we want, say 23. Then, we take the user's guess

using the  input() function. Functions are just reusable pieces of programs. We'll read

more about them in the next chapter.

We supply a string to the built-in input function which prints it to the screen and waits for

input from the user. Once we enter something and press enter key, the input() function

returns what we entered, as a string. We then convert this string to an integer using int

and then store it in the variable guess. Actually, the int is a class but all you need to know

right now is that you can use it to convert a string to an integer (assuming the string

contains a valid integer in the text).

Next, we compare the guess of the user with the number we have chosen. If they are equal,

we print a success message. Notice that we use indentation levels to tell Python which

statements belong to which block. This is why indentation is so important in Python. I hope

you are sticking to the "consistent indentation" rule. Are you?

Notice how the if statement contains a colon at the end - we are indicating to Python that

a block of statements follows.

Then, we check if the guess is less than the number, and if so, we inform the user to guess

a little higher than that. What we have used here is the elif clause which actually

combines two related if else-if else statements into one combined  if-elif-else

statement. This makes the program easier and reduces the amount of indentation required.

The elif and else statements must also have a colon at the end of the logical line

followed by their corresponding block of statements (with proper indentation, of course)

You can have another if statement inside the if-block of an if statement and so on - this is

called a nested if statement.

Remember that the elif and else parts are optional. A minimal valid if statement is:

if True:

    print('Yes, it is true')

After Python has finished executing the complete if statement along with the associated

elif and else clauses, it moves on to the next statement in the block containing the if

statement. In this case, it is the main block where execution of the program starts and the

next statement is the print('Done') statement. After this, Python sees the ends of the

program and simply finishes up.

Although this is a very simple program, I have been pointing out a lot of things that you

should notice even in this simple program. All these are pretty straightforward (and

surprisingly simple for those of you from C/C++ backgrounds) and requires you to become

aware of all these initially, but after that, you will become comfortable with it and it'll feel

'natural' to you.

Note for C/C++ Programmers

There is no  switch statement in Python. You can use an if..elif..else statement to

do the same thing (and in some cases, use a dictionary to do it quickly)

The while Statement

The while statement allows you to repeatedly execute a block of statements as long as a

condition is true. A while statement is an example of what is called a  looping statement. A

while statement can have an optional else clause.

Example:

#!/usr/bin/python

# Filename: while.py

number = 23

running = True

while running:

    guess = int(input('Enter an integer : '))

    if guess == number:

        print('Congratulations, you guessed it.')

        running = False # this causes the while loop to stop

    elif guess < number:

        print('No, it is a little higher than that.')

    else:

        print('No, it is a little lower than that.')

else:

    print('The while loop is over.')

    # Do anything else you want to do here

print('Done')

Output:

$ python while.py

Enter an integer : 50

No, it is a little lower than that.

Enter an integer : 22

No, it is a little higher than that.

Enter an integer : 23

Congratulations, you guessed it.

The while loop is over.

Done

How It Works:

In this program, we are still playing the guessing game, but the advantage is that the user

is allowed to keep guessing until he guesses correctly - there is no need to repeatedly run

the program for each guess, as we have done in the previous section. This aptly

demonstrates the use of the while statement.

We move the  input and  if statements to inside the  while loop and set the variable

running to True before the while loop. First, we check if the variable running is True and

then proceed to execute the corresponding while-block. After this block is executed, the

condition is again checked which in this case is the running variable. If it is true, we

execute the while-block again, else we continue to execute the optional else-block and then

continue to the next statement.

The else block is executed when the while loop condition becomes False - this may even

be the first time that the condition is checked. If there is an else clause for a while loop,

it is always executed unless you break out of the loop with a break statement.

The True and False are called Boolean types and you can consider them to be equivalent

to the value 1 and 0 respectively.

Note for C/C++ Programmers

    Remember that you can have an else clause for the while loop.

The for loop

The  for..in statement is another looping statement which iterates over a sequence of

objects i.e. go through each item in a sequence. We will see more about sequences in detail

in later chapters. What you need to know right now is that a sequence is just an ordered

collection of items.

Example:

#!/usr/bin/python

# Filename: for.py

for i in range(1, 5):

    print(i)

else:

    print('The for loop is over')

Output:

$ python for.py

1

2

3

4

The for loop is over

range(...)

    range([start,] stop[, step]) -> list of integers

    

    Return a  list containing an arithmetic progression of integers.

    range(i, j) returns [i, i+1, i+2, ..., j-1]; start (!) defaults to 0.

    When step is given, it specifies the increment (or decrement).

    For example, range(4) returns [0, 1, 2, 3].  The end point is omitted!

    These are exactly the valid indices for a list of 4 elements.

How It Works:

In this program, we are printing a sequence of numbers. We generate this sequence of

numbers using the built-in  range function.

What we do here is supply it two numbers and range returns a sequence of numbers

starting from the first number and up to the second number. For example, range(1,5)

gives the sequence [1, 2, 3, 4]. By default, range takes a step count of 1. If we supply a

third number to range, then that becomes the step count. For example, range(1,5,2)

gives [1,3]. Remember that the range extends up to the second number i.e. it does not

include the second number.

The for loop then iterates over this range - for i in range(1,5) is equivalent to for i

in [1, 2, 3, 4] which is like assigning each number (or object) in the sequence to i, one

at a time, and then executing the block of statements for each value of i. In this case, we

just print the value in the block of statements.

Remember that the else part is optional. When included, it is always executed once after

the for loop is over unless a break statement is encountered.

Remember that the for..in loop works for any sequence. Here, we have a list of numbers

generated by the built-in range function, but in general we can use any kind of sequence of

any kind of objects! We will explore this idea in detail in later chapters.

Note for C/C++/Java/C# Programmers

The Python for loop is radically different from the C/C++ for loop. C# programmers

will note that the for loop in Python is similar to the foreach loop in C#. Java

programmers will note that the same is similar to for (int i : IntArray) in Java

1.5 .

In C/C++, if you want to write for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++), then in Python you

write just  for i in range(0,5). As you can see, the for loop is simpler, more

expressive and less error prone in Python.

The break Statement

The break statement is used to break out of a loop statement i.e. stop the execution of a

looping statement, even if the loop condition has not become False or the sequence of

items has been completely iterated over.

An important note is that if you break out of a for or while loop, any corresponding loop

else block is not executed.

Example:

#!/usr/bin/python

# Filename: break.py

while True:

    s = (input('Enter something : '))

    if s == 'quit':

        break

    print('Length of the string is', len(s))

print('Done')

Output:

$ python break.py

Enter something : Programming is fun

Length of the string is 18

Enter something : When the work is done

Length of the string is 21

Enter something : if you wanna make your work also fun:

Length of the string is 37

Enter something : use Python!

Length of the string is 12

Enter something : quit

Done

How It Works:

In this program, we repeatedly take the user's input and print the length of each input each

time. We are providing a special condition to stop the program by checking if the user input

is 'quit'. We stop the program by breaking out of the loop and reach the end of the

program.

The length of the input string can be found out using the built-in  len function.

Remember that the break statement can be used with the for loop as well.

The continue Statement

The continue statement is used to tell Python to skip the rest of the statements in the

current loop block and to continue to the next iteration of the loop.

Example:

#!/usr/bin/python

# Filename: continue.py

while True:

    s = input('Enter something : ')

    if s == 'quit':

        break

    if len(s) < 3:

        print('Too small')

        continue

    print('Input is of sufficient length')

# Do other kinds of processing here...

Output:

$ python test.py

Enter something : a

Too small

Enter something : 12

Too small

Enter something : abc

Input is of sufficient length

Enter something : quit

How It Works:

In this program, we accept input from the user, but we process them only if they are at

least 3 characters long. So, we use the built-in len function to get the length and if the

length is less than 3, we skip the rest of the statements in the block by using the continue

statement. Otherwise, the rest of the statements in the loop are executed and we can do

any kind of processing we want to do here.

Note that the continue statement works with the for loop as well.