Flow control statements allow a programmer to check conditions
and based on the results of the program. If there is
a problem in code and goes to that certain line of
code, but if the code runs true it will repeatedly keep
running. Also through flow control statements you can use
break and continue statements to continue an iteration and
terminate it. The good thing about C# is it can modularize
code into manageable chunks and complex code can be
executed through C#. A great example of C# being used
is when college students are trying to get admitted into
college like text scores, financial standing and GPA. Where
C# comes into play is colleges run out of space and
they have limited financial aid to give out, having C#
would find a loophole and notify the school if there was
space and financial aid available last minute for a student
if another student leaves. It wouldn't be possible to write
software to check various conditions and change execution
paths. Flow control in applications is accomplished using
conditional operators and Booleans to railroad designated inputs
to their ideal outputs. These tools allow for applications to
fulfil a variety of select needs by associating actions on
a user interface to Boolean values which themselves are tied
to actionable code. This conditional code is structured to the
order of its designer provide functionality when needs are
met. The process is multiplied to create an application with
a host of uses. An example application would be a basic
match-3 puzzle game for iOS. The Ui for the app is
going to be “minimalistic”. There’d be a PLAY, OPTIONS,
CREDITS, and “another game I made here” button. All this
could be tied to a branch of “if” statements that proceed
to their corresponding screens. Functions for the game would
be tied to “start”, ”pause”, ”play” and ”share” where when
conditionally read as TRUE would execute their operations
allowing the user to participate in my crafted experience at
their own leisure. Flow control allows for a flow to be
controlled. That is in my eyes a tailored experience that
can be operated and observed by a participant. The concept
as applied to programming applies a level of automation to
human interactions that facilitate end-to-end transactions of all
types. Flow control and functions operate in an application
like how the USB symbol looks. There is a starting
point, multiple paths, and the function calls would represent
the tops. The USB symbol resembles this style of graph
that I would use to map out the functions and flow
control. The USB symbol is a great example for this
especially when you put multiple in a graph. The Large
circle would be the starting point, the smaller circle, triangle,
and the square would be the different paths or if
statements. The different tips would be the end of the
function but depending on the point, it would point to
or call another function. Even the paths in the USB
could represent paths in a program, The long triangle would
represent the normal flow and the two sides would be
the if statements that could result in a differing path to
another function. I think that if you were to add two
symbols to a graph, it probably would not work as I
would want it to but the symbol would still be a
great representation for flow control and functions. A good
example of a simple weather apps are the ones found on
IOS and Android that provides users with the current weather
conditions, humidity, wind speed, and a five to seven-day
forecast. The main function usually starts displays the weather
and temperature for the day on the home screen. The
apps have the main function call different sub-functions to
display the current weather conditions and the five to seven-
day forecast. Sub-functions are responsible for retrieving data
from an external API, processing the data, and displaying
the results in a user-friendly format.The apps always allow
you to select the user location by using flow control to
prompt the user to enter a location from a list. Once
the location has been selected the app calls a function
to retrieve weather data for that location. When the weather
is displayed, flow control is used to determine how to
display the results based on the user's options selected. Flow
control and functions allow weather apps to be more flexible,
modular, and easier to maintain. It allows developers to
reuse code, reduce redundancy, and make the code easier to
understand. Flow control, on the other hand, creates different
paths for the user to customize the information they wish
to have displayed, making the app more responsive and user-
friendly. Flow control is a basic but very important/powerful
concept in programming. It allows the programmer to have
control of how the lines of code execute and which ones
execute. One of the simplest examples can a discount if
a customer purchases $100 or more of the product. If
the purchase is greater then $100USD, a 10% discount will
be given.
Flow Control Example
If the customer bought $100 USD or more in product
((Unit Price X #
of Units) *.9)
If the customer bought less than $100 USD in product
z z z z zz Unit Price X #
of Units
Not both of these lines of code will execute. One or
the other and then the appropriate math will be done
based on the purchase price. Flow control allows the code
to be more efficient, maintainable, flexible, and scalable over
time. Allowing the program, the ability to decide which line
of code will be executed next means the code doesn’t
have to go line by line but can skip lines of code
based on previous lines of code’s results. This makes the
code much more usable and allows for many more scenarios
to be solved by the program. Finally flow control will
allow the programmer to write less code as the flow
control can allow for the same code to be reused in
a loop till X happens for an example. If less than 25,
repeat. The flow control will reuse the same line of code
or lines of code till 25 has been met. Flow control
and functions are important concepts in programming that enable
developers to create complex and flexible applications. In a
weather forecasting application, flow control is used to determine
how the program behaves in different scenarios. For example,
if the user enters an invalid location, the application would
display an error message and prompt the user to try
again. Functions break down the program into smaller, reusable
pieces that can be combined to perform specific tasks, such
as formatting the data returned from the API or generating
activity recommendations based on weather conditions. By using
flow control and functions, developers can create applications
that are easy to modify and extend. This means that new
functions can be added, or existing ones modified without
having to change the main function's code. For instance, if
the application needs to support multiple weather APIs or
display more detailed weather information, developers can modify
the existing functions or add new ones to achieve this.Flow
control and functions are powerful tools that enable developers
to create flexible, maintainable, and extensible applications. They
allow developers to create applications that can adapt to
changing requirements and provide a better user experience. In
the case of a weather forecasting application, flow control,
and functions would be used to handle user input, query
the weather API for data, and display the results, as well
as generate actionable recommendations based on the weather
conditions. An example application is one where students are
being evaluated for admission to a university; various conditions
need to be checked such as test scores, GPA, statement-of-
purpose, financial status - and flow control statements are
required to decide whether a student can be granted admission
or not and also whether the student can be considered
eligible for financial aid. Also, there are limited seats
available in each course and there is a budget for financial
aid, so loops come in handy to grant admission to
students as long as seats are available and as long as
the aid budget is not exhausted. Flow control also comes
into play if a student declines an admission, and an
alternate student needs to be chosen for admission from the
waiting list. For code that is repeated (e.g. the same
logic applies with slight variations for domestic, in-state, out-
of-state and international students), moving the concerned code
to a function allows us to avoid repeating very similar
code in multiple places. Without flow control, it would be
impossible to write software to check various conditions and
change execution paths based on these, hence these are
fundamental to C# (and any programming language). Flow
control in an application is used to help program execution
take various paths. Often times when the flow control sends
the program execution a certain way different functions could
be called. It is the functions in your program that will
not only be called based on flow control but will be
called and within them have flow control and even more
functions able to be called.
For example, lets say you have a web based account
registration application. Users will be required to fill out
certain fields such as first name, last name, email and
phone number. A function be called once the user hits
the submit button in order to check the information. Inside
the function could be flow control such as "if" statements
to check that a value was entered and that it was a
valid value. The first step to any language is syntax, but
there is a lot more to building software system solutions
than just building a system that compiles and runs. (More
on performance in future weeks). Most of us will work
for an organization where we are part of a development
team. The ability to adhere to standards for code development,
data security/integrity, and performance will at the top of
the priority list for any development project. Thus, the
introduction of style guides. A style guide is typically a
document that has rules and guidelines about how to write
code. This is typically language-specific but there are organizational
style and standards that will be applied across all languages
and development platforms. C# has several types of flow
control constructs that can be found in other programming
languages, such as loops, switches, and conditionals but it
also has some features and syntax for flow control.
A good example is "yield return" statement that allows
creation of iterators that can repeat a group of values
over and over making it easier for working with large
data sets. It also has the "lock" statement that allows
multithreading, creating critical sections of code that can be
used by one thread at a time. It helps prevents race
conditions and synchronization issues. In Conclusion C# as a
lot of the same flow control that other languages have.
And do not let me forget to reiterate that it is one
of the very important languages used to write Operating
system like IOS, Android, Linux, Windows and Mac OS. It
is a trusted language used for generations of platforms that
have come and gone over the many years. That is what
makes it a great tool, is its unique features and Syntax
to managing program flow and creating efficient and effective
code. The Control Flow Statements in C# are the statements
that Alter the Flow of Program Execution and provide better
control to the programmer on the flow of execution. The
Control Flow Statements are useful to write better and more
complex programs. A program executes from top to bottom
except when we use control statements. We can control the
order of execution of the program, based on logic and
values.
