for loops
The for loop comes in two styles: the traditional for loop and the enhanced for loop. The enhanced for loop is also known as the for-each loop and is specifically designed to work with arrays and collections. We will start by examining the traditional for loop.
Traditional for loop
This type of for loop is extremely useful when you know how many iterations you wish to perform beforehand. Its syntax is detailed in Figure 5.8.
Figure 5.8 – The traditional for loop
The code block in the preceding figure is optional. We could simply control one statement, such as System.out.println("Looping");, and omit {}. The for header is the section inside (). It consists of three parts, delimited by semi-colons:
- Initialization section: This is where you initialize your loop control variables. The variables declared here have the scope of the loop block only. Traditionally, the variables declared here are named
i,j,k, and so forth...