PRG: Created page with "TOC ==Introduction== Basic for loops have already been covered in Loops. If you haven't already done so, please review Loops. == Discussion == The generic for loop traverses all values returned by the iterator. The iterator is the number that keeps track of how many times a for loop is supposed to run. This is different from a the numeric for loop in Loops in that before we were simply displaying the iterator (or a f..."

2024-12-10T22:10:36Z

Created page with "__TOC__ ==Introduction== Basic for loops have already been covered in Loops. If you haven't already done so, please review Loops. == Discussion == The generic for loop traverses all values returned by the iterator. The iterator is the number that keeps track of how many times a for loop is supposed to run. This is different from a the numeric for loop in Loops in that before we were simply displaying the iterator (or a f..."

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__TOC__

==Introduction==

Basic for loops have already been covered in [[Loops]]. If you haven't already done so, please review [[Loops]].

== Discussion ==

The generic for loop traverses all values returned by the [[iterator]]. The iterator is the number that keeps track of how many times a for loop is supposed to run. This is different from a the numeric for loop in [[Loops]] in that before we were simply displaying the iterator (or a function of the iterator) itself:

Numeric for:
<pre>
for i=20,1,-2 do print(i) end
</pre>

Now what we are doing is assigning a value to the iterator.

Let's make [[Table]] with the months of the year:

<pre>
months = {"January", "February", "March", "April", "May", "June", "July",
"August", "September", "October", "November", "December"}
</pre>

We know that there are twelve months in the year, and we can also call January "month #1", February "month #2", and so on.:

<pre>
revmonths = {["January"] = 1, ["February"] = 2, ["March"] = 3, ["April"] = 4, ["May"] = 5, ["June"] = 6,
["July"] = 7, ["August"] = 8, ["September"] = 9, ["October"] = 10, ["November"] = 11, ["December"] = 12}
</pre>

Notice how we assigned a unique month number to each month of the year. Now we can find our iterators again:

<pre>
print(revmonths["January"]) -- prints 1, which is the first month of the year
print(revmonths["December"]) -- prints 12, which is the twelfth month of the year
</pre>

== Script ==

<pre>
months = {"January", "February", "March", "April", "May", "June", "July", "August", "September", "October",
"November", "December"}

revmonths = {["January"] = 1, ["February"] = 2, ["March"] = 3, ["April"] = 4, ["May"] = 5, ["June"] = 6,
["July"] = 7, ["August"] = 8, ["September"] = 9, ["October"] = 10, ["November"] = 11, ["December"] = 12}

print(revmonths["January"])
print(revmonths["February"])
print(revmonths["March"])
print(revmonths["April"])
print(revmonths["May"])
print(revmonths["June"])
print(revmonths["July"])
print(revmonths["August"])
print(revmonths["September"])
print(revmonths["October"])
print(revmonths["November"])
print(revmonths["December"])
</pre>

Instead of having to slough through typing a print() command for every month, you can now do a for loop:

<pre>
months = {"January", "February", "March", "April", "May", "June", "July", "August", "September", "October",
"November", "December"}

revmonths = {"January", "February", "March", "April", "May", "June", "July", "August", "September",
"October", "November", "December"}

for i,v in ipairs(months) do
revmonths[v] = i
print(revmonths[v])
end

</pre>

[[Category:Scripting Tutorials]]

Generic for - Revision history