Beginning AppleScript®

4.1. The repeat...times Statement

The repeat...times statement is used to repeat a set of statements a specified number of times. You get a chance to use this statement in the following Try It Out.

4.1.1.

4.1.1.1. Try It Out: Log a Message Five Times

To log a message five times, follow these steps:

1. Start up Script Editor and type the following program:

   -- Log a message 5 times
   
   repeat 5 times
       log "AppleScript rocks!"
   end repeat

2. Click the Event Log tab and run the program. If you look at the Event Log pane, you see the following results displayed:

   (*AppleScript rocks!*)
       (*AppleScript rocks!*)
       (*AppleScript rocks!*)
       (*AppleScript rocks!*)
       (*AppleScript rocks!*)

4.1.1.2. How It Works

Here is the general format of the repeat...times statement:

repeat expr times
    statement
    statement
    ...
end repeat

Execution of the repeat...times begins with evaluation of expr, which can be any expression that evaluates to an integer. The result of the expression determines the number of times the statements that follow up to the end repeat are executed. So if expr is 5, as it was in the preceding program, the statements get executed in turn five times. If expr is 100, the statements get executed 100 times. And if expr is less than or equal to zero, none of the statements that follow up to the end repeat get executed.

In this program, one statement is included in the body of your loop, namely

log "AppleScript rocks!"

This log statement was executed five times, as verified by the results in the log. ...