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Decision Making and
Looping
Programming for Problem Solving
(PPS)
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INTRODUCTION
1. In a C program sometimes it is required to repeat a set of
statements until a certain condition is met.
2. The repetition of set of statements depending upon result
of a test condition is called as looping.
3. A loop essentially consists of two segments, one is body of
the loop and other one is control statement.
4. The control statement tests certain condition and
depending upon the result, directs the control of execution
inside the body of the loop or to the next statement which
would be present after the loop.
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5. Depending on the position of the control statement loops
are classified as the entry-controlled loop and exit-control
loop.
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Entry-controlled loop Exit-controlled loop
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6. A looping process in general would include the
following four steps.
a. Setting and initialization of a condition variable.
b. Execution of the statements in the loop.
c. Test for a specified value of the condition variable
for execution of the loop.
d. Updating the condition variable.
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Loops in C
1. while loop/statement
2. do while loop/statement
3. for loop/statement
while loop
1. The while loop is an entry-controlled loop.
2. It takes the general form as:
while (test condition)
{
Body of the loop
}
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3. The test condition is evaluated first and if the condition is true,
then the body of the loop is executed.
4. After execution of the body the test condition is once again
evaluated and if it is true, the body is executed once again.
5. The body of the loop continues to execute until the test
condition finally becomes false and the control is transferred out
of the loop.
6. On exit the program continues with the statement immediately
after the body of the loop.
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do while loop
1. The do while loop is an exit-controlled loop.
2. It takes the general form as:
do
{
Body of the loop
}
while (test condition);
3. The body of the loop is executed for the first time irrespective of
the test condition.
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4. At the end of the loop test condition with while statement is
evaluated.
5. If the condition is true the body of the loop is once gain
executed.
6. The body of the loop continues to execute until the test condition
finally becomes false and the control is transferred out of the
loop.
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for loop
1. The for is another entry-controlled loop.
2. It takes the general form as:
for (initialization; test-condition; updation)
{
Body of the loop
}
3. The execution of the for statement begins with initialization of
loop control variable such as i = 0.
4. The value of test control variable is tested using the
test-condition.
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3. If the test condition is true the body of the loop is executed and
control is transferred back to the for statement.
4. Now the control variable is updated (incremented or
decremented).
5. The new value of control variable is again tested and if results
into true the body of the loop is once again executed.
6. The body of the loop continues to execute until the test
condition finally becomes false and the control is transferred out
of the loop.
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Nesting of for loops
for (i = 1; i < 0; i++)
{
…………….
for (j = 1; j < 0; j++)
{ Outer
Inner
……….. loop
……….. loop
}
…………….
}
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break statement in a loop
1. It is used for early exit from the loop on the occurance certain
condition.
2. When break statement is encountered by the compiler, the loop
is immediately terminated irrespective of the test condition
specified for the loop and the control is transferred to the
statement following the loop.
3. When the loops are nested then the break statement would
terminate the loop containing it only.
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while (................) do
{ {
………….. …………..
………….. …………..
if (condition) if (condition)
break; break;
…………. ………….
Loop Loop
…………. ………….
exit exit
} }while (................);
…………. ………….
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for (................) for (................)
{ {
………….. …………..
………….. for (................)
if (condition) {
break; if (condition)
…………. break;
Loop inner
…………. ………….
exit Loop }
} exit …………..
…………. }
………….
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continue statement in a loop
1. It is used to skip a part of a loop on the occurrence of certain
condition .
2. When continue statement is encountered by the compiler in a
particular iteration of a loop, the statements following it are not
executed i.e. skipped and the compiler continues with the next
loop iteration.
3. In while and do while loops the control is transferred to the test
condition whereas in for loop the control is transferred to the
updation section.
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while (................) do
{ {
………….. …………..
………….. …………..
if (condition) if (condition)
continue; continue;
…………. ………….
…………. ………….
} }while (................);
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for (initialization; test-condition; updation)
{
…………..
…………..
if (condition)
continue;
………….
………….
}
