Repeating a Specific Number of Times with a for Loop

In Python, the for loop is one of the most basic and widely used looping keywords.

In this lesson, we will explore the basic For Loop: Structure and Usage.

A for loop is a control statement that repeatedly executes a block of code for each item in an iterable.

An iterable is a data type that can be looped over, such as a list or a string.

A for loop executes the block of code following the colon (:) once for each item in the iterable.

The basic structure of a for loop is as follows.

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for variable in iterable:
    code to execute

When the for loop is executed, the first item of the iterable is assigned to the variable, and the block of code defined after the colon (:) is executed.

Then, the second, third, and so on, items are sequentially assigned to the variable, and the code defined after the colon is repeatedly executed.

Let's look at two basic examples of how loops can be used.

When you want to repeat a specific range of numbers, you use the range() function.

The range function generates a range of numbers from the start value up to, but not including, the end value.

For example, range(1, 6) generates a range of numbers from 1 to 5, with the i variable being assigned 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 sequentially.

Note that the last value generated is 5, not 6.

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# Printing numbers from 1 to 5
for i in range(1, 6):
    print(i)

Here, range(1, 6) generates a range of numbers from 1 to 5, and the for loop sequentially assigns 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 to the i variable.

Then, the code print(i) defined after the colon (:) is repeatedly executed 5 times, printing the numbers from 1 to 5.

Since strings are also iterables, you can use a for loop to access each character in a string.

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# Printing each character of a string
word = "hello"

for char in word:
    print(char)

This code prints each character of the string "hello" one line at a time.