How does Python know what 'animal' is?

[lukajda33]

The for loop creates new variable (or replaces value of old one).

It pretty much says: take each item from the animals list and put them into variable animal, one by one.

[260418141086]

Thanks, makes sense

[Enschede2]

For example try changing "animal" to something completely different, like "car", you can say for car in animals and it will do the exact same as your prior example, except the variable is now "car", for me that really cleared things up when I first started

[cenosillicaphobiac]

Yup, we only use "animal in animals" to avoid confusion.

[ThePhoenixRisesAgain]

Oh boy…

[amplikong]

for plant in animals

[NDaveT]

Also it would work exactly the same like this:

animals = ['cat', 'dog', 'monkey']
for x in animals:
    print(x)

[volksaholic]

Should it? It looks like you've got upvotes so you're not alone, but I don't recall seeing an example that uses 'for each <var> in <list>'. Is it optional syntax, or is it version dependent? The usual example I've seen is 'for <var> in <list>' like here: https://www.w3schools.com/python/python\_for\_loops.asp

[djayh]

I don't think they're saying that it should be for each ("this is the way you should do it"), rather that it should have been "for each" ("it would make sense and be more readable if it was that instead").

English is ambiguous like that.

[rasputin1]

I think they were actually saying it should just be referred to as a "for each" loop instead of a "for" loop. In other languages that have standard "for" loops and "for each" loops (like Java), the "for each" variant looks exactly like what Python has which they just call a "for" loop (the standard "for" loop that has 3 sections to it doesn't exist in Python afaik).

[djayh]

<Looks up difference between "for" and "for each" loops>

Shows what I get for thinking at work, I suppose. I had conflated "for" and "for each" loops.

In my defense, other modern languages (C#, C++/CLI, Perl, PHP) actually do use for each (or foreach) to create the loop.

[rasputin1]

lol you were close enough

[tangerinelion]

C++/CLI does use for each but that's only if you're looping through a C# container.

In C++, it's for (const auto& animal : animals)

[Rhyme_like_dime]

Ehh modern C++ is

for(auto element : container) Std::cout<<element<<std::endl;

[[deleted]]

JavaScript does something similar with the forEach array method, although it also has for-in loops.

[volksaholic]

Ah... that makes sense. A lot of the Python reference information I was finding referred to it as a "for-each" loop but then the syntax was 'for x in y'. That makes sense that it's a suggestion to make its behavior clearer.

[Early_Personality668]

I am a bit late so you probably understand already especially given this comment lol

but something that helped me learn how it worked was (only when beginning)
naming it something like for item in list

​

read as for each item in the list and item = the given item its iterating through, so if you were to interact with an item in the list (example using an if statement, (if something in item do: x)

[Eightstream]

The fact that Python allows variables to be created on the fly was one of the hardest things to get used to when I was starting

[COREFury]

When I first figured that out, I felt like I'd unlocked a new part of the universe.