7.4. Loops With Conditions

In the last chapter, we learned how to use conditionals to decide which block of code to run. In this chapter, we use loops to repeat a set of statements multiple times.

You might wonder:

  1. Can I put a loop inside an if statement?

  2. Can I put a conditional inside a loop?

The answer to both of these questions is a definite, YES!

7.4.1. Repeating a Check

Run the following code samples to see how each one behaves.

Examples

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num = 13

for number in range(num):
   if number%3 == 0:
      print(number, "is divisible by 3.")
   else:
      print(number, "is NOT divisible by 3.")

In this first loop, the text displayed in the console depends on whether the condition number%3 == 0 returns True. If number is evenly divisible by 3, then line 5 runs. Otherwise, line 7 runs.

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text = 'Coding ROCKS!'
num_vowels = 0

for char in text:
   if char in 'aeiou':
      num_vowels += 1

print(text, "contains", num_vowels, "lowercase vowels.")

In the second loop, the condition char in 'aeiou' returns True if the value of char matches any part of the string. When this happens, num_vowels gets increased by 1 (line 6). Coding ROCKS! contains 2 lowercase vowels, so line 6 only runs 2 times. For every other character in the string, the line gets skipped.

7.4.2. Looping if

We can also place a loop inside any of the code blocks of an if/elif/else statement.

Example

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if condition:
   for var_name in range(value):
      # Loop body
elif other_condition:
   for char in string:
      # Loop body
else:
   for step in range(20):
      print("Python ROCKS!")

Set up this way, only one of the three loops will run:

  1. IF condition is True, the for loop starting on line 2 runs.

  2. IF condition is False and other_condition is True, then the loop starting on line 5 runs.

  3. IF condition and other_condition both return False, then Python ROCKS! gets printed 20 times by the last loop.

Placing a loop inside a conditional allows us to choose when the loop body should run.