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From: Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Loops (was Re: do { quit; } else { })
Date: Fri, 18 Apr 2025 15:01:50 +0200
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On 16.04.2025 16:31, bart wrote:
> On 16/04/2025 13:08, Michael S wrote:
>> [...]
> 
> When languages used to be 1-based, it was easy. Then 0-based came along,
> and typically iteration changed from 1..N inclusive, to 0..N-1 inclusive.

You should be aware that [simple] linear iterations are conceptually
coupled to arrays. The choice of 0-based arrays and thus iterations is
"useful" for compiler creators of such languages. They allow without
overhead and skill for optimization an efficient array access.

> [...]

>> Oh, now you could interpret a written above as statement of superiority
>> of C syntax. So, no, it is not. Those are *minor* points.
> 
> Here's some C code to print the elements of an array:
> 
>     static char* table[] = {"one", "two", "three", "four", "five"};
> 
>     for (int i=0; i<sizeof(table)/sizeof(table[0]); ++i)
>         printf("%d %s\n", i, table[i]);

(This all exposes quite clearly the low-level characteristics of "C".)

> And here is how I'd write it using the 'minor' advantages of my syntax:
> 
>     static []ichar table = ("one", "two", "three", "four", "five")
> 
>     for i, s in table do
>         println i, s
>     end
> 
> To me, the differences in that for-loop are like chalk and cheese.

Sure, many language support newer syntaxes for such things. Even older
languages do such abstractions; e.g. Awk[*]

    split ("one two three four five", table)
    for (i in table)
        print i, table[i]

(One of many things I like in this very small but powerful language.)

> 
> (Note that the latter is 1-based, but it is not apparent in the code;
> the outputs are numbered 1 to 5. The C is zero-based, and that has to be
> specified. The outputs are numbered 0 to 4.
> 
> Moreover, I could have specified a different array base, and the loop
> remains unchanged.)

Janis

[*] Read it as "GNU Awk", since in that variant (as opposed to standard
Awk) you can control the 'for' iteration order.