Instructional Material: WHILE Statement

Another form of flow control allows us to have a statement (or block of statements) repeatedly executed while a comparison result is true. This is done with the while statement. The form of the while statement is:

Here are some examples, each using a comparison of the value of variable z to a constant to arrive at a boolean value. Assume z = 0 at the start of this code:

If the comparison result is false when the while is checked the first time, the block of statements is not executed. Typically the looping of the while statement is controlled by the comparison but it is possible to exit from the loop's block of statements with the break statement. The break statement ends the while and continues execution after the end of the while block. Here is an example, assume x = 0:

Assuming autoMode is true to start, this loop will increment x to 3 then continue looping until autoMode (a boolean variable) becomes false, without further incrementing x. Remember the condition is tested first, so if autoMode was false when we first hit the while, the while block would be skipped.

The while statement loops on the comparision result being true. So far the examples loop on the result being true. You can also loop when the comparision result is false by changing the comparision or inverting (convert true/false to the opposite) the false result by preceding it with the ! (not) operator:

Assuming autoMode is false to start, this loop will increment x to 3 then continue looping until autoMode (a boolean variable) becomes true, without further incrementing x. We invert the false value of autoMode into a true so the while repeats. When autoMode goes true, the invert makes the result false and the while loop ends.

Watch a video about looping (stop after the while discussion). Here is a detailed discussion of the while statement. Here is more about break and continue statements. Here are the above examples in CodingGround.

Note that while and do-while are essentially the same. With the do-while, the comparison is done at the end of the loop, thus insuring the loop is executed at least once before the comparison is checked.

This do-while block is executed at least once with continued looping dependent on the result of the comparison.

In robotics, the while statement is often used to loop and monitor the input from joysticks or controllers and operate the robot in response to those inputs. For instance, a while loop could continue until the variable that indicates a match is in progress goes false.