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Chapter 8: Statement-Level Control Structures

This chapter covers control flow within program statements, focusing on selection,
iteration, and unconditional branching.

Levels of Control Flow

Within expressions (Chapter 7)
Among program units (Chapter 9)
Among program statements (this chapter)

Control Structure
A control structure is a control statement and the statements whose
execution it controls.

Design Question
Should a control structure have multiple entries?

Selection Statements
A selection statement allows choosing between two or more execution paths.

Two general categories:

Two-way selectors
Multiple-way selectors

Two-Way Selection Statements

General form:

if control_expression then clause else clause

Design Issues:

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What is the form and type of the control expression?

How are the then and else clauses specified?
How should the meaning of nested selectors be specified?

The Control Expression

If the then reserved word or some other syntactic marker isn't used to introduce
the then clause, the control expression is placed in parentheses.
In C89, C99, Python, and C++, the control expression can be arithmetic.
In most other languages, the control expression must be Boolean.

Clause Form
In many contemporary languages, the then and else clauses can be single
statements or compound statements.
In Perl, all clauses must be delimited by braces (they must be compound).
In Fortran 95, Ada, Python, and Ruby, clauses are statement sequences.
Python uses indentation to define clauses.

Nesting Selectors
Java example:

if (sum == 0)
if (count == 0)
result = 0;
else
result = 1;

Which if gets the else?

Java's static semantics rule: else matches with the nearest previous if.

To force an alternative semantics, compound statements may be used:

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if (sum == 0) {
if (count == 0)
result = 0;
} else
result = 1;

The above solution is used in C, C++, Java, and C#.

Statement Sequences as Clauses

Ruby

if sum == 0 then
if count == 0 then
result = 0
else
result = 1
end
end

Python

if sum == 0 :
if count == 0 :
result = 0
else :
result = 1

Selector Expressions
In ML, F#, and LISP, the selector is an expression

let y = if x > 0 then x else 2 * x

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If the if expression returns a value, there must be an else clause (the

expression could produce output, rather than a value).

Multiple-Way Selection Statements

Allow the selection of one of any number of statements or statement groups.

Design Issues:
1. What is the form and type of the control expression?
2. How are the selectable segments specified?
3. Is execution flow through the structure restricted to include just a single
selectable segment?
4. How are case values specified?
5. What is done about unrepresented expression values?

Examples
C, C++, Java, and JavaScript:

switch (expression) {
case const_expr1:
stmt1;
...
case const_exprn:
stmtn;
[default: stmtn+1]
}

Design choices for C’s switch statement

1. Control expression can be only an integer type.

2. Selectable segments can be statement sequences, blocks, or compound
statements.
3. Any number of segments can be executed in one execution of the construct
(there is no implicit branch at the end of selectable segments).
4. default clause is for unrepresented values (if there is no default, the whole
statement does nothing).

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C#

Each selectable segment must end with an unconditional branch (goto or break).
The control expression and the case constants can be strings.

Ruby

Ruby has two forms of case statements

leap = case
when year % 400 == 0 then true
when year % 100 == 0 then false
else year % 4 == 0
end

Multiple-Way Selection Using if

Multiple Selectors can appear as direct extensions to two-way selectors, using else-
if clauses, for example in Python:

if count < 10 :
bag1 = True
elif count < 100 :
bag2 = True
elif count < 1000 :
bag3 = True

The Python example can be written as a Ruby case:

case
when count < 10 then bag1 = true
when count < 100 then bag2 = true
when count < 1000 then bag3 = true
end

Scheme’s Multiple Selector

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General form of a call to COND:

(COND (predicate1 expression1) ... (predicaten expressionn) [(ELSE

expressionn+1)] )

The ELSE clause is optional; ELSE is a synonym for true.

Each predicate-expression pair is a parameter.
Semantics: The value of the evaluation of COND is the value of the expression
associated with the first predicate expression that is true.

Iterative Statements
The repeated execution of a statement or compound statement is accomplished
either by iteration or recursion.

General design issues for iteration control statements:

1. How is iteration controlled?
2. Where is the control mechanism in the loop?

Counter-Controlled Loops
A counting iterative statement has a loop variable and a means of specifying the
initial, terminal, and stepsize values.

Design Issues:
1. What are the type and scope of the loop variable?
2. Should it be legal for the loop variable or loop parameters to be changed in the
loop body, and if so, does the change affect loop control?
3. Should the loop parameters be evaluated only once, or once for every iteration?

Examples
Ada

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for var in [reverse] discrete_range loop

...
end loop

Design choices:

Type of the loop variable is that of the discrete range (A discrete range is a sub-
range of an integer or enumeration type).
Loop variable does not exist outside the loop.
The loop variable cannot be changed in the loop, but the discrete range can; it
does not affect loop control.
The discrete range is evaluated just once.
Cannot branch into the loop body.

C-based languages

for ([expr_1] ; [expr_2] ; [expr_3])

statement

The expressions can be whole statements or even statement sequences, with

the statements separated by commas.
The value of a multiple-statement expression is the value of the last statement
in the expression.
If the second expression is absent, it is an infinite loop.

Design choices:

There is no explicit loop variable.

Everything can be changed in the loop.
The first expression is evaluated once, but the other two are evaluated with
each iteration.
It is legal to branch into the body of a for loop in C.

Python

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for loop_variable in object:

# loop body
else:
# else clause

The object is often a range, which is either a list of values in brackets ([2, 4,
6]), or a call to the range function (range(5), which returns 0, 1, 2, 3, 4).
The loop variable takes on the values specified in the given range, one for each
iteration.
The else clause, which is optional, is executed if the loop terminates normally.

F#

Because counters require variables, and functional languages do not have variables,
counter-controlled loops must be simulated with recursive functions

let rec forLoop loopBody reps =

if reps <= 0 then ()
else
loopBody()
forLoop loopBody (reps - 1)

This defines the recursive function forLoop with the parameters loopBody (a function
that defines the loop’s body) and the number of repetitions. () means do nothing and
return nothing.

User-Located Loop Control Mechanisms

Sometimes it is convenient for the programmers to decide a location for loop control
(other than top or bottom of the loop)

Simple design for single loops (e.g., break)

while(i<5):
if(i==3)
break;

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Design issues for nested loops

1. Should the conditional be part of the exit?
2. Should control be transferable out of more than one loop?

C , C++, Python, Ruby, and C#

Have unconditional unlabeled exits (break).

Java and Perl

Have unconditional labeled exits (break in Java, last in Perl).

C, C++, and Python

Have an unlabeled control statement, continue, that skips the remainder of the
current iteration but does not exit the loop.

Java and Perl

Have labeled versions of continue.

Iteration Based on Data Structures

The number of elements in a data structure controls loop iteration. Control
mechanism is a call to an iterator function that returns the next element in some
chosen order, if there is one; else loop is terminated.

C's for can be used to build a user-defined iterator:

for (p=root; p==NULL; traverse(p)){

PHP

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currentpoints at one element of the array.

next moves current to the next element.
reset moves current to the first element.

Java 5.0 (uses for, although it is called foreach)

For arrays and any other class that implements the Iterable interface, e.g., ArrayList

for (String myElement : myList) {

...
}

C# and F# (and the other .NET languages)

Have generic library classes, like Java 5.0 (for arrays, lists, stacks, and queues). Can
iterate over these with the foreach statement. User-defined collections can
implement the IEnumerator interface and also use foreach.

List<String> names = new List<String>();

names.Add("Bob");
names.Add("Carol");
names.Add("Ted");
foreach (Strings name in names)
Console.WriteLine ("Name: {0}", name);

Ruby
Blocks are sequences of code, delimited by either braces or do and end. Blocks can be
used with methods to create iterators. Predefined iterator methods (times, each, upto):

3.times {puts "Hey!"}

list.each {|value| puts value} # (list is an array; value is a block param
1.upto(5) {|x| print x, " "}

Ruby has a for statement, but Ruby converts them to upto method calls.

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Unconditional Branching
Transfers execution control to a specified place in the program.
Represented one of the most heated debates in the 1960s and 1970s.
Major concern: Readability.
Some languages do not support goto statement (e.g., Java).
C# offers goto statement (can be used in switch statements).
Loop exit statements are restricted and somewhat camouflaged goto's.

Conclusions
Variety of statement-level structures. Choice of control statements beyond selection
and logical pretest loops is a tradeoff between language size and writability.
Functional and logic programming languages use quite different control structures.

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