13.2. for Statement

Like a while loop, a for loop is executed repeatedly as long as a condition is satisfied. If the number of times to be repeated is certain, using the for statement will be more convenient than using the while statement. The for statement has the following syntax in WMLScript. The parts enclosed in brackets [] are optional.

for ([expression1]; [expression2]; [expression3])
{
  WMLScript statement(s)
}

expression1 is the initialization expression. It is executed before any WMLScript statements in the for loop are executed. expression1 is executed once only in the lifetime of the for statement. Very often programmers initialize the loop counter here.

expression2 is the conditional expression that determines whether the for loop should continue or stop. It is evaluated at the beginning of each iteration. If it is true, the loop continues. If it is false or invalid, the loop stops. If you omit expression2, the for loop will continue forever unless the WMLScript interpreter encounters a break statement, which will be covered in a moment.

expression3 is executed after each iteration. Very often programmers increment the loop counter here.

If there is only one statement inside the curly brackets, the curly brackets can be omitted.

The following WMLScript example shows how to use the for statement to execute a block of code 10 times:

var result = 0;
for (var counter=0; counter<10; counter++)
{
  result += 2;
}

The for loop in the above WMLScript example runs like this:

1. The counter variable is declared and is initialized to 0.

2. The WMLScript interpreter checks whether the condition "counter<10" is true. As counter contains the value 0 now, the condition evaluates to true.

3. The statement "result += 2;" is executed.

4. The WMLScript interpreter executes "counter++".

5. The WMLScript interpreter checks whether the condition "counter<10" is true. Now counter contains the value 1, so the condition "counter<10" is true.

6. The statement "result += 2;" is executed again.

7. ...

If you continue tracing the program, you will find that the for loop stops after repeating 10 times. When the for loop quits, the statement "result += 2;" has been executed 10 times totally and so the result variable contains the value 20.

Note that the lifetime of the counter variable is till the end of the function, although it is declared inside the parentheses of the for statement. This behavior is different from some other languages like Java. Feel free to go back to the earlier section "Scope and Lifetime of WMLScript Variables" if you forget what we have talked about.

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