Loops

There are several kinds of loops in Go, all written with a syntax similar to the for loop statement.

Three-Component Loop

In Go, loops are defined with a three-component syntax similar to what is used in for loops for other languages like C or Java.

Syntax

for init; condition; post {
  statements
}

Here, the init statement initializes an index variable. Next, a condition is used to check the index variable against a boolean expression before every loop. As long as it’s true, the iteration will go forward and statements inside the loop will execute. Lastly, the post statement executes after every loop, usually to increment/decrement the index variable.

Example

This example counts down from ten to one. The init statement sets the variable i to 10, the condition ends the loop when i is no longer greater than zero, and the post statement decrements i by one after each pass.

for i := 10; i > 0; i-- {
  fmt.Println(i) // Counts down from 10 to 1
}

The While Loop

A “while” loop runs as long as the condition is true. In some languages, this is implemented with a while keyword. In Go, however, the “while” loop is implemented with a for loop by omitting the init and post statements.

Syntax

for condition {
  statements
}

The loop will execute as long as condition remains true.

Example

This example behaves exactly the same way as the prior example, except the variable countdown is initialized outside the loop, and is decremented inside the loop itself. The condition still runs the loop as long as countdown is still greater than zero.

countdown := 10
for countdown > 0 {
  fmt.Println(countdown) // counts down from 10 to 1
  countdown--
}

An Infinite Loop

If the condition statement is omitted along with the post and init statements, the loop will execute indefinitely unless a break statement is encountered.

Syntax

for {
  statements
}

Example

This example will print the string “Help! I’m trapped in a loop!” until the program is halted externally.

for {
  fmt.Println("Help! I'm trapped in a loop!") // executes forever
}

A Range Loop

By using the range keyword, a for loop can step through the items in a collection such as a array, map, slice, channel, or string.

Syntax

for index, value = range collection {
  statements
}

Where index is a variable containing the index of the collection, value is a variable used to step through the values in collection, and collection is the collection the loop is stepping through.

Example

In the example below, a range loop steps through the elements of the slice numbers and prints the index-value pair for each element.

numbers := []string{"One","Two","Three"}
for i, n := range numbers {
  fmt.Println(i,n)
}

This example leads to the following output:

0 One
1 Two
2 Three

break and continue

The break and continue statements work in Go as they do in C and Java.

• A break statement halts execution of a loop and continues with the next statement after the loop.
• The continue statement skips execution to the next iteration of the loop.

Codebyte Example

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