While Loop Statements

Python utilizes the while loop similarly to other popular languages. The while loop evaluates a condition then executes a block of code if the condition is true. The block of code executes repeatedly until the condition becomes false.

The basic syntax is:

counter = 0
while counter < 10:
   # Execute the block of code here as
   # long as counter is less than 10

An example is shown below:

days = 0    
week = ['Monday', 'Tuesday', 'Wednesday', 'Thursday', 'Friday', 'Saturday', 'Sunday']
while days < 7:
   print("Today is " + week[days])
   days += 1

Output:

Today is Monday
Today is Tuesday
Today is Wednesday
Today is Thursday
Today is Friday
Today is Saturday
Today is Sunday

Line-by-Line Explanation of the above CODE:

  1. the variable ‘days’ is set to a value 0.
  2. a variable week is assigned to a list containing all the days of the week.
  3. while loop starts
  4. the block of code will be executed until the condition returns ‘true’.
  5. the condition is ‘days<7’ which rougly says run the while loop till the point the variable days is less than 7
  6. So when the days=7 the while loop stops executing.
  7. the days variable gets updated on every iteration.
  8. When the while loop runs for the first time the line ‘Today is Monday’ is printed onto the console and the variable days becomes equal to 1.
  9. Since the variable days is equal to 1 which is less than 7 so the while loop is executed again.
  10. It goes on again and again and when the console prints ‘Today is Sunday’ the variable days is now equal to 7 and the while loop stops executing.

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