OpenEuphoria

Suggestion for conditional loops

• Posted by "Juergen Luethje" <j.lue at gmx.de> Jul 15, 2005
• 584 views

Hi all,

I'd like to suggest a new syntax for conditional loops:

Use "loop" or something similar (rather than "end while") to denote the
end of a conditional loop, also allow conditional loops without a while
statement. So the basic conditional loop would look like:
   do
      <command_1>
      <command_2>
      ...
   loop

rather than currently
   while 1 do
      <command_1>
      <command_2>
      ...
   end while


Then allow a while statement at the beginning *or at the end* of the
loop:
   while x < 2 do
      <command_1>
      <command_2>
      ...
   loop


   do
      <command_1>
      <command_2>
      ...
   loop while x < 2


The advantage is in the last case, where we currently have to write:
   while 1 do
      <command_1>
      <command_2>
      ...
      if x >= 2 then
         exit
      end if
   end while


The problems concerning compatibility are little, we just would have to
replace "end while" with "loop" in existing programs.

But I don't know whether this would require big changes in the parser.
Also, we now always have "end <keyword>" (end if, end for, end function, ...).
Using "do/loop" instead of "while/end while" would introduce an
exception, so I don't know whether this actually ia good idea. But at
least I wanted to tell you for discussion.

Regards,
   Juergen

-- 
Have you read a good program lately?