C++ Without Fear: A Beginner’s Guide That Makes You Feel Smart, Third Edition

4. The Handy, All-Purpose “for” Statement

Some tasks are so common that C++ provides special syntax just to represent them with fewer keystrokes: the increment operator (++) is one example. Because adding 1 is so common, C++ provides the increment operator to save space, although many other languages make do without it.

++n;    // Add 1 to n.

Subtraction by one is common as well, so C++ also provides the decrement operator, used in the expressions −−n and n−−.

Another example is the C++ for statement. Its only purpose is to make certain kinds of loops more concise. However, this turns out to be so useful that programmers rely on it heavily and I use it throughout the rest of this book.

You’ll find that once you use it a few times, the for statement ...