Basics of Programming – Decision control statements in C programming language 1
C – Iterative Statements
for loop in C programming
A loop is used for executing a block of statements repeatedly until a given condition returns
false.
C For loop
This is one of the most frequently used loop in C programming.
Syntax of for loop:
for (initialization; condition test; increment or decrement)
{
//Statements to be executed repeatedly
}
Flow Diagram of For loop
Basics of Programming – Decision control statements in C programming language 2
Step 1: First initialization happens and the counter variable gets initialized.
Step 2: In the second step the condition is checked, where the counter variable is tested
for the given condition, if the condition returns true then the C statements inside the body
of for loop gets executed, if the condition returns false then the for loop gets terminated
and the control comes out of the loop.
Step 3: After successful execution of statements inside the body of loop, the counter
variable is incremented or decremented, depending on the operation (++ or –).
Example of For loop
#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
int i;
for (i=1; i<=3; i++)
{
printf("%d\n", i);
}
return 0;
}
Output:
1
2
3
Various forms of for loop in C
I am using variable num as the counter in all the following examples –
1) Here instead of num++, I’m using num=num+1 which is same as num++.
Basics of Programming – Decision control statements in C programming language 3
for (num=10; num<20; num=num+1)
2) Initialization part can be skipped from loop as shown below, the counter variable is declared
before the loop.
int num=10;
for (;num<20;num++)
Note: Even though we can skip initialization part but semicolon (;) before condition is must,
without which you will get compilation error.
3) Like initialization, you can also skip the increment part as we did below. In this case
semicolon (;) is must after condition logic. In this case the increment or decrement part is done
inside the loop.
for (num=10; num<20; )
{
//Statements
num++;
}
4) This is also possible. The counter variable is initialized before the loop and incremented
inside the loop.
int num=10;
for (;num<20;)
{
//Statements
num++;
}
Basics of Programming – Decision control statements in C programming language 4
5) As mentioned above, the counter variable can be decremented as well. In the below example
the variable gets decremented each time the loop runs until the condition num>10 returns
false.
for(num=20; num>10; num--)
Nested For Loop in C
Nesting of loop is also possible. Lets take an example to understand this:
#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
for (int i=0; i<2; i++)
{
for (int j=0; j<4; j++)
{
printf("%d, %d\n",i ,j);
}
}
return 0;
}
Output:
0, 0
0, 1
0, 2
0, 3
1, 0
1, 1
1, 2
1, 3
In the above example we have a for loop inside another for loop, this is called nesting of loops.
One of the example where we use nested for loop is Two dimensional array.
Basics of Programming – Decision control statements in C programming language 5
Multiple initialization inside for Loop in C
We can have multiple initialization in the for loop as shown below.
for (i=1,j=1;i<10 && j<10; i++, j++)
What’s the difference between above for loop and a simple for loop?
1. It is initializing two variables. Note: both are separated by comma (,).
2. It has two test conditions joined together using AND (&&) logical operator. Note: You cannot
use multiple test conditions separated by comma, you must use logical operator such as && or
|| to join conditions.
3. It has two variables in increment part. Note: Should be separated by comma.
Example of for loop with multiple test conditions
#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
int i,j;
for (i=1,j=1 ; i<3 || j<5; i++,j++)
{
printf("%d, %d\n",i ,j);
}
return 0;
}
