OpenEuphoria

More Wish List

• Posted by "Cuny, David at DSS" <David.Cuny at DSS.CA.GOV> Sep 29, 2000
• 397 views

Here's a wish for the 'while' and 'for' loops:

[for loop]

   for <var> = <start> to <end> [by <step>] do
      [exit]
      [continue]
   [else
      <statements>]
   end for

[while loop]

   while <test> do
      <statements>
      [exit]
      [continue]
   [else
      <statements>]
   end while

[continue]

This instruction causes the code to jump to the top of the loop. It's
standard with most languages, and always puzzled me that Euphoria hasn't got
one yet.

[else]

I found this one in Python, and it's pretty cool. If the loop is exited
*without* encountering an 'exit' statement, the 'else' branch is taken. So
instead of having to write this sort of thing to handle exceptions:

   integer found

   found = False
   for i = 1 to length( s ) do
      ... code goes here ...
      if test then
         flag = True
         exit
      end if
   end for

   if not found then
      ... exception processing ...
   end if

you could use the 'else' to handle the exception:

   for i = 1 to length( s ) do
      ... code goes here ...
      if test then
         exit
      end if
   else
      ... exception processing ...
   end for

It not only makes the code shorter, but it binds the exception code to the
loop construct, which is where it logically belongs.

-- David Cuny