Resolved: Which loop is more effecient?
Hi !
I have a doubt which one is a better loop between for and while.
From my understanding , while loop have to do two things, check for condition and also increment or decrement the value to avoid infinite loop.
Does it mean, while loop takes more execution time?
Hey,
Thank you for your question!
The choice would largely depend on the problem you have at hand.
Whenever your solution involves iterating over a range of values, then for-loops are certainly preferable. That is because you
1. set a starting value,
2. set an end value, and
3. perform the iteration
all in one line:
for i in range(start, end):
...
where start and end are arbitrary integers. In a while-loop, on the other hand, you would need a separate line for each of these operations:
i = start
while i < end:
...
i += 1
where I have assumed start < end. Therefore, not only would a for-loop perform more efficiently, but would also increase readability and make your code tidier, which is a great advantage! for-loops also avoid the possibility of entering an infinite loop by forgetting to increment the value of your iterator, as might happen in a while-loop.
Consider now the example that Giles gives in the lesson, where a teacher needs to enter the ages of all class members from all classes. A for-loop would not be appropriate here because the number of students from each class might not be the same. In a while-loop, the teacher inputs the ages until -1 is entered which would exit the loop and indicate that there are no more student in that class.
I hope this answers your question!
Kind regards,
365 Hristina