For vs. while in C programming?

Question

There are three loops in C: for, while, and do-while. What's the difference between them?

For example, it seems nearly all while statements can be replaced by for statements, right? Then, what's the advantage using while?

Answer 1

A while loop will always evaluate the condition first.

while (condition) {
  //gets executed after condition is checked
}

A do/while loop will always execute the code in the do{} block first and then evaluate the condition.

do {
  //gets executed at least once
} while (condition); 

A for loop allows you to initiate a counter variable, a check condition, and a way to increment your counter all in one line.

for (int x = 0; x < 100; x++) {
   //executed until x >= 100
}

At the end of the day, they are all still loops, but they offer some flexibility as to how they are executed.

Here is a great explanation of the reasoning behind the use of each different type of loop that may help clear things up. Thanks clyfe

The main difference between the for's and the while's is a matter of pragmatics: we usually use for when there is a known number of iterations, and use while constructs when the number of iterations in not known in advance. The while vs do ... while issue is also of pragmatics, the second executes the instructions once at start, and afterwards it behaves just like the simple while.

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For loops are especially nice because they are concise. In order for this for loop:

for (int x = 0; x < 100; x++) {
   //executed until x >= 100
}

to be written as a while loop, you'd have to do the following:

int count = 0;
while (count < 100) {
  //do stuff
  count++;
}

In this case, there's just more stuff to keep up with and the count++; could get lost in the logic. This could end up being troublesome depending on where count gets incremented, and whether or not it should get incremented before or after the loop's logic. With a for loop, your counter variable is always incremented before the next iteration of the loop, which adds some uniformity to your code.

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For the sake of completeness, it's probably meaningful to talk about break and continue statements here which come in handy when doing loop processing.

break will instantly terminate the current loop and no more iterations will be executed.

//will only run "do stuff" twice
for (int x = 0; x < 100; x++) {
  if (x == 2) {
    break;
  }
  //do stuff
}

continue will terminate the current iteration and move on to the next one.

//will run "do stuff" until x >= 100 except for when x = 2
for (int x = 0; x < 100; x++) {
  if (x == 2) {
    continue;
  }
  //do stuff
}

Note that in a for loop, continue evaluates the part3 expression of for (part1; part2; part3); in contrast, in a while loop, it just jumps to re-evaluate the loop condition.