Beginning Microsoft® Visual Basic® 2008

Chapter 4. Controlling the Flow

In Chapter 3, you learned about algorithms and their role in programming. In this chapter, you're going to look at how you can control the flow through your algorithms so that you can make decisions like, "If X is the case, go and do A; otherwise do B." This ability to make decisions is known as branching. You'll also see how you can repeat a section of code (a process known as looping) a specified number of times, or while a certain condition applies.

Specifically, you'll learn more about:

• The If statement

• Select Case

• For loops

• Do loops

Making Decisions

Algorithms often include decisions. It's this decision-making ability that makes computers do what they do so well. When you're writing code, you make two kinds of decisions. The first kind is used to find out what part of an algorithm you're currently working on or to cope with problems. For example, imagine you have a list of 10 people and need to write a piece of code to send an e-mail to each of them. To do this, after sending each e-mail, you ask, "Have I finished?" If so, you quit the algorithm; otherwise you get the next person in the list. As another example, you might need to open a file, so you ask, "Does the file exist?" You have to deal with both possible answers to that question.

The second kind of decision is used to perform a different part of the algorithm depending on one or more facts. Imagine you're going through your list of 10 people so that you can send an e-mail to those who own a computer ...