Beginning Programming All-in-One For Dummies, 2nd Edition

Chapter 5

Repeating Commands by Looping

IN THIS CHAPTER

Looping a fixed number of times

Looping zero or more times

Looping at least once

Working with nested loops

Exiting early from a loop

Examining your loops

To write any program, you must specify what the computer needs to do at any given time. Sometimes, you may need to write the same command multiple times. For example, suppose you want to print your name five times. You could just write the same command five times like this:

PRINT "John Smith"PRINT "John Smith"PRINT "John Smith"PRINT "John Smith"PRINT "John Smith"

Writing the same five commands is cumbersome. Even worse, what if you suddenly decide you want to print your name not just 5 times, but 5,000 times? Do you really want to write the same command 5,000 times?

Probably not, which is why computer scientists invented loops. A loop is just a shortcut for making the computer ...