Congratulations! You have made it through the lesson!

Loops are a staple in any programmer’s toolbox for automating repetitive tasks.

Similar to an if statement, a loop repeats a block of code while a certain condition is met.

When these loops repeat a fixed number of times, it is called a definite loop. A definite loop can be programmed like so:

for number := 0; number < 5; number++ {
 fmt.Println(number)
}

Sometimes the number of iterations cannot be known ahead of time. For moments like this, an indefinite loop can be used that repeats as long as a condition remains true. Indefinite loops usually look like this:

number := 0
for number < 5 {
  fmt.Println(number)
  number++
}

But sometimes indefinite loops can become infinite loops if they never end. An infinite loop can be a problem if the user believes that the program has frozen. On the other hand, an infinite loop can be useful when a web server needs to be constantly running.

To stop a loop on demand, a break statement can be used. If the current iteration of the loop needs to be skipped instead, there is also a continue statement:

for count := 0; count < 20; count++ {
  if count == 8 {
    continue
  }
  if count == 15 {
    break
  }
  fmt.Println(count)
}

The range statement gives a simple syntax for iterating maps and arrays:

letters := []string{"A", "B", "C", "D"}
for index, value := range letters {
  fmt.Println("Index:", index, "Value:", value)
}

In your next program, use loops to automate your most repetitive tasks!