Looping (II)

Outline
• Motivation

1.for statement
2. Further Examples on Array Processing
3. More For-Loop Examples

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Motivation
• In our previous lectures and lab, we have learned
how to use while loop
• We have also seen that there are two Basic Cases
of looping:
– Finite repetition
– Indefinite repetition
• Today we are going to look at for loop, a feature
that generally help us do finite repetition

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1. for statement (Syntax)
• The initialization (init) statement
– Executes once before the condition for (init; condition;
update)
statement.
statement1;
statement2;
• The condition statement
– is the same as in the while-loop condition.
init

• The loop body (statement1) update

– Repeats until the condition statement condition
becomes false. true statement1
false

• The update statement statement2

– Executes after statement1 in each iteration,

and
– is usually for updating the loop condition.
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1.1. for Statement (Example #1)
1 int i;
2
3 // A simple loop that iterates 5 times
4 for (i = 1; i <= 5; i++) {
5 printf("%d\n", i);
6 }
7
8 printf("Lastly, i = %d\n", i);
9
1
2
3
4
5
Lastly, i = 6

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1.1. for-loop vs. while-loop

While-Loop 1 int i;
Version 2
3 i = 1;
4 while (i <= 5) {
5 printf("%d\n", i);
6 i++;
7 }

For-Loop 1 int i;
Version 2
Comparison
3 for (i = 1; i <= 5; i++) {
4 printf("%d\n", i);
5 }

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1.1. for-loop vs. while-loop
• They are "equivalent" in terms of what you can
accomplish with them.
– Any task you can accomplish with one of these loop structures,
you can also accomplish the task with the other loop structure.

• for-loop is more expressive for tasks to be repeated a

finite number of times, i.e. finite repetition.

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1.2. Example #2 – Multiple ways of writing a for loop
1 int i, num, N; 1 int i, num, N;
2 scanf("%d", &N); 2 scanf("%d", &N);
3 // i increases from 0 to 3 // i increases from 1 to
4 N-1 4 N
5 for (i = 0; i < N; i++) { 5 for (i = 1; i <= N; i++)
6 num = N - i; 6 {
7 printf("%d\n", num); 7 num = N - i + 1;
} printf("%d\n", num);
1 int i, num, N;
Different
} ways to output numbers from
2 scanf("%d", &N);
N to 1 using a for loop.
3 // i decreases from N to
4 1
The numbers we want to generate
5 for (i = N; i >= 1; i--)
inside a loop can usually be expressed
6 {
in terms of the loop variable.
7 num = i;
printf("%d\n", num);
} 8
1.3. Example #3: Arrays and for loop
1 int list[4], i;
We usually use for loops
2
3 printf("Enter 4 #'s: "); to process array elements.
4 for (i = 0; i < 4; i++)
5 scanf("%d", &list[i]);
6
7 // Print the input values in reverse order
8 printf("You have entered:");
9 for (i = 0; i < 4; i++)
10 printf("%d", list[ 4 – i - 1 ]);
11 printf("\n");

Enter 4 #'s: 7 11 45 23
You have entered: 23 45 11 7

Note: Input values can be separated by any white space character.

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2. Further Examples on Array Processing

• The following few slides are some examples

illustrating how we can process data in arrays
using for loops. The examples include:
– Reading N numbers from the user and store the
numbers in an array
– Computing average of all the numbers in an array
– Finding the largest value in an array

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1 int N, // # of data
2 num[100], // To store up to 100 numbers
3 i;
4
5 printf("# of data:");
6 scanf("%d", &N); // Assuming 1 <= N <= 100
7
8 for ( i = 0; i < N; i++ )
9 scanf("%d", &num[ i ]);
10

Example 4: Read N integers (N <= 100) from the user and store the
integers in the array num[].

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1 // Suppose num[] contains N numbers.
2 // (Please refer to Example 4 for the code)
3
4
5 double sum;
6
7 sum = 0.0;
8 for ( i = 0; i < N; i++ )
9 sum += num[ i ];
10
11 printf("Average = %.2f\n", sum / N);
12
13
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Example 5. Computing the average of the numbers in an array.

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1 // Suppose num[] contains N numbers.
2 // (Please refer to Example 4 for the code)
3
4 int max;
5
6 max = num[0]; // Assume the 1st element is
7 largest
8
9 for ( i = 1; i < N; i++ ) {
10
11 // Update max if we encounter a larger
12 value
13 if (num[i] > max)
14 max = num[i];
15 }
Example 6: Finding the largest number in an array.
printf("The largest # is %d\n", max);
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2.1. A Common Mistake
• Typical cause of array out-of-bound exception when using arrays in a
for-loop:
int A[10], i;

for ( i = 0; i <= 10; i++ )

A[i] = i;

Remember, the index of an array element ranges from 0 to “array

size - 1”!

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3. More For-Loop Examples
• For-loops can be used in solving many general
problems that may not involve arrays.
• A reminder though: it is usually NOT
recommended to use them in indefinite
repetitions.

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Example #7
• Objective: To output the first N numbers in the
following number series:
1 2 -3 -4 5 6 -7 -8 9 10 -11 -12 …

Notice that these numbers follow the following pattern:

+ve +ve -ve -ve +ve +ve -ve -ve …

and the pattern "+ve +ve -ve -ve" repeats after every four
numbers.

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Example #7: Solution
1 int i, N;
2
3 printf("N = ? ");
4 scanf("%d", &N);
5
6 for (i = 1; i <= N; i++) {
7 if (i % 4 == 1 || i % 4 == 2)
8 printf("%d ", i);
9 else
10 printf("%d ", -i);
11 }

i 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
i % 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 0 1
4
The remainders, i % 4, also repeat every four numbers

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Summary
• Syntax of for loops
• Comparison of for loops and while loops
• More examples on array processing

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Reading Assignment
• C: How to Program, 8th ed, Deitel and Deitel
• Chapter 3 Structured Program Development in C
– Sections 3.7 – 3.9
• Chapter 4 C Program Control
– Sections 4.1 – 4.6, 4.9

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