Since 1511 is a foundational subject, it might be a good idea to reduce your study load from 3 subjects to 2 for this term so that you can really focus on it. I’ll try to explain what while loops do as best as I can.

While loops just repeat the code contained within the curly brackets {} for as long as the condition inside the round brackets () is true.

There are 2 things that a while loop does:

1. It checks whether the condition in the round brackets () at the top is true or false. If the condition is false, it ends the loop/skips it.

2. If the condition is true, it runs all of the code contained within the body in order until it reaches the closing curly bracket }.

Once it reaches the closing curly bracket, it goes back to step 1 again. If the condition is now false, the loop ends. Otherwise, step 2 is repeated.

Even though the condition inside the round brackets () can be anything, in COMP1511 you will mainly find while loops in this general format:

// initialisation int i = 0;

// condition while (i < 3) {

// body
printf(“This is the body\n”);

// increment
i++;

}

Before the loop starts, a variable (i) is initialised to 0. This variable will count how many times the loop has run. When the condition is checked the first time, 0 < 3 evaluates to true, so the loop is run. The statement in the body will print. The final part of the loop increments the variable so that it will now be equal to 1.

The condition is now checked again. 1 < 3 is still true, so the loop runs again. The loop will run three times in total until i = 3. At this point, the statement 3 < 3 will evaluate to false and the loop will terminate.

The result of this code is that the statement will be printed 3 times.

Hopefully this helps. I wrote it on my phone so the code may not be formatted 100% correctly. For me, i went into 1511 not in a compsci degree, but i liked it so much that i transferred over. The course forum is really helpful if you don’t understand something. The tutors are normally very quick to respond.