Basic programming course: Lesson #5 Control structures. Part 2. Cycles.

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Explain the cycles in detail. What are they and how are they used? What is the difference between the While and Do-While cycle?

Cycles, in other words, are commonly known as loops. Loop means letting a repeat of an instruction over and over. It is used to handle repetitive tasks or do the same thing until a different condition is met. Cycles are used for data processing, auto-repeating tasks, input validation, etc. Cycles are an important aspect of programming, using conditions to get the right data. No matter the number of times needed to loop based on the condition.

The server type of cycle (loops), but I will try to explain the commonly used ones.

For loop: This cycle is used when you know the number of iterations you want to run in your program. Here you assign the number of loops, by applying a starting point and point. The For loop is broken into the starting point, condition(which needs to be true), and number of times the cycle will go.

for (starting point; condition; number_of_time) {
// code block to be repeated
}


For i = 1 to 5 Do
Print I
EndFor


While Loop: This cycle has a condition met before the iteration is executed. It will continue the cycle by executing the iteration as long as the condition is true. The cycle only stops when the condition is false.

while (condition) {
// code block to be repeated
}

i = 1
While (i <= 5) Do
Print I
i = i + 1
EndWhile

Do-While Loop: This is the opposite of the previous cycle mentioned above. Here the code is executed before the condition is checked. The iteration is completed no matter the outcome of the condition. So even if the condition returns false, the iteration was done already.

do {
// code block to be repeated
} while (condition);


i = 1
do
print i
i = i + 1
while i <= 15

Differences Between While and Do-While Cycles

• The While loop will execute if the condition is not true while the Do-While will execute the first time before checking if the condition is true or false.
• The While loop condition is checked before the loop starts, while the Do-While loop condition is checked after the first loop.

Investigate how the Switch-case structure is used and give us an example.

The switch case is a conditional structure not too different from the If conditional structure we saw in the past session. The switch loop is used to pick out a block of code from multiple options to execute. This structural condition deals with multiple options and helps to break down logic. As I mentioned, it has multiple options with each option having its specific logic to be executed.

Switch is broken into three sections, the variable, case, and default.

Variable is the container holding what needs to be evaluated
Case (which can be as many as you want) is the different options. Any that will match the variable, the block of code in that case will be executed. note, that whenever a case is matched, the rest are ignored
Default comes in a situation where none of the cases (options) match the value of the variable. Default is optional, but best practices are recommended.

• Example:

I will use the switch to ask the program to do a different task on different days of the week,

Monday: Check emails.
Tuesday: Attend meetings.
Wednesday: Work on a project.
Thursday: Review project.
Friday: Review reports.
Saturday: Plan for the next week.
Sunday: Work on the Community Account.


Print "Enter a number from 1 to 7 to select the day of the week:"
Read day
Switch day Do
Case 1:
Print "Monday: Check emails."
Case 2:
Print "Tuesday: Attend meetings."
Case 3:
Print "Wednesday: Work on a project."
Case 4:
Print "Thursday: Review project."
Case 5:
Print "Friday: Review reports."
Case 6:
Print "Saturday: Plan for the next week."
Case 7:
Print "Sunday: Work on the Community Account."
Default:
Print "Invalid input! Please enter a number between 1 and 7."
EndSwitch

Explain what the following code does: