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process description of a for loop By Jane Doe

Introduction

In Computer Science, a for loop is an iterative process that repeatedly executes code based off of the condition of a counter variable. A for loop is used when trying to do a section of code a certain amount of times. Typically, the number of repetitions are already known before coding the loop. A for loop process have four iterative steps: initialize, evaluate, execute, and increment. See Figure 1 for a flowchart of these steps.

START

Figure 1 For Loop Flowchart

Runs the Code

Changes Index Value

INCREMENT

EXECUTE

TERMINATE

Compares Index to Condition

EVALUATE

Sets Index Number

INITIALIZE

Discussion

Initialize

Initializing is a value setting process that assigns a variable to a value. This step is necessary to insure that the proper amount of iterations will occur. The value that is set is the starting point of the loop and referred to as the index. The index is what is evaluated in the next step.

Evaluate

Evaluation is an assessment process in which two items are compared to see if they are equal. There is a set condition that the index is compared to. This step decides whether or not the loop continues. If the index meets the condition, then the loop is terminated. Otherwise, the loop moves forward executing the code.

Execute

In programming, execution is an implementation process in which lines of code are performed. The loop runs the code once for each iteration. After each iteration the index is incremented.

Increment

Incrementing is an altering process where the original value is changed. This step changes the value of the index based off of how many times the loop has been performed. This step is required in the process because if the index is never changed, then the loop would never meet its condition. The index can be either increased or decreased depending on what the coder’s original intent is.

Conclusion

A for loop is an iterative process that repeatedly executes code based off the condition of an index. The index is compared to the condition, if the condition is not met, then the code is executed. After the code executes the index is change and then loops back up to evaluate whether the condition is met. The loop continues until the condition is met; once the condition is met the for loop terminates. This is the process that a for loop goes through in order to run a block of code multiple times in a program.

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