Chapter 5

Repetition
and Loop
Statements

Instructor:
Kun-Mao Chao
( 台大資工 趙坤
茂)
Repetition in Programs
• In most software, the statements in the program
may need to repeat for many times.
– e.g., calculate the value of n!.
– If n = 10000, it’s not elegant to write the code as
1*2*3*…*10000.
• Loop is a control structure that repeats a group
of steps in a program.
– Loop body stands for the repeated statements.
• There are three C loop control statements:
– while, for, and do-while.
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Flow Diagram of Loop Choice Process

e.g., read the content in a file

e.g., calculate the value of n!

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Comparison of Loop Choices (1/2)

Kind When to Use C Structure

Counting loop We know how many loop while, for
repetitions will be needed
in advance.
Sentinel- Input of a list of data ended while, for
controlled loop by a special value
Endfile- Input of a list of data from while, for
controlled loop a data file

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Comparison of Loop Choices (2/2)
Kind When to Use C Structure
Input validation Repeated interactive input do-while
loop of a value until a desired
value is entered.
General Repeated processing of while, for
conditional data until a desired
loop condition is met.

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The while Statement in C
• The syntax of while statement in C:
while (loop repetition condition)
condition
statement
• Loop repetition condition is the condition
which controls the loop.
• The statement is repeated as long as the loop
repetition condition is true.
true
• A loop is called an infinite loop if the loop
repetition condition is always true.
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An Example of a while Loop
Loop repetition condition

Statement

Loop control variable is the variable whose value controls

loop repetition.
In this example, count_emp is the loop control variable.
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Flowchart for a while Loop

Loop repetition condition

Statement
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Compound Assignment Operators
(1/2)
• The loop body usually consists of statements of
the form: variable = variable op expression.
– e.g., count_emp = count_emp + 1;
• C provides compound assignment operators
which enable a more concise notation for this
kind of statements.
– “variable op = expression” is the same to
“variable = variable op expression.”

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Compound Assignment Operators
(2/2)
Simple Assignment Compound Assignment
Operators Operators
count_emp = count_emp += 1;
count_emp + 1;
time = time -1; time -= 1;

product = product * product *= item;

item;
total = total / total /= number;
number;
n = n % (x+1); n %= x+1;
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The for Statement in C
• The syntax of for statement in C:
for (initialization expression;
expression
loop repetition condition;
condition
update expression)
expression
statement
• The initialization expression set the initial value of the
loop control variable.
• The loop repetition condition test the value of the loop
control variable.
• The update expression update the loop control
variable.
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An Example of the for Loop
Initialization Expression

Loop repetition condition

Update Expression

count_emp is set to 0 initially.

count_emp should not exceed the value of number_emp.
count_emp is increased by one after each iteration.
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Increment and Decrement Operators

• The statements of increment and decrement are

commonly used in the for loop.
• The increment (i.e., ++)
++ or decrement (i.e., --)
--
operators are the frequently used operators
which take only one operand.
• The increment/decrement operators increase or
decrease the value of the single operand.
– e.g., for (int i = 0; i < 100; i++){
i++ … }
– The variable i increase one after each iteration.
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Comparison of Prefix and Postfix
Increments
The value of the expression (that uses the ++/-- operators)
depends on the position of the operator.

The value The value

of j is of j is not
increased increased

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Sentinel-Controlled Loops

• Sometimes we may not know how many times

the loop will repeat.
• One way to do this is to choose a sentinel value
as an end marker.
– The loop exits when the sentinel value is read.
• If the user wish to exit the loop, he or she has to
input the sentinel value.
value
– It is similar to the “logout” function in many
applications.
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An Example of Sentinel-Controlled
while Loops

If the user wish to exit the loop,

he or she has to input -99.

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An Example of Endfile-Controlled
Loops
• fscanf is a function used to read file.
• EOF stands for the special value of end-file returned by
fscanf.
fscanf
• This loop repeats until reading the end of the file.

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Nested Loops
• Nested loops consist of an outer loop with one
or more inner loops.
loops
• e.g.,
for (i=1;i<=100;i++){ Outer loop

for(j=1;j<=50;j++){
… Inner loop
}
}
• The above loop will run for 100*50 iterations.
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The do-while Statement in C

• The syntax of do-while statement in C:

do
statement
while (loop repetition condition);
condition
• The statement is first executed.
• If the loop repetition condition is true, the
statement is repeated.
• Otherwise, the loop is exited.
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An Example of the do-while Loop

/* Find even number input */

do{
printf(“Enter a value: ”);
scanf(“%d”, &num);
}while (num % 2 !=0)
This loop will repeat if the user
inputs odd number.

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Homework #4 (1/2)
• Write a program that prompts the user to input
an integer n.
• Draw a triangle with n levels by star symbols.
For example,
n = 3,
*
**
***
• After drawing the triangle, repeat the above
process until the user input a negative integer.
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Homework #4 (2/2)
• An usage scenario:
Please input: 2
*
**
Please input: 3
*
**
***
Please input: -9
Thank you for using this program.
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