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PDS: CS 11002 Computer Sc & Engg: IIT Kharagpur 1

Iteration in C

It is often necessary to execute a sequence of

statements repeatedly to compute certain value.
Every imperative programming languagea
provide different constructs (statements) to
perform this iterative computation.
aA language that uses commands to change the content of a location.

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Example III

Write a program to compute the following sum:

Sn = 1 + 2 + 3 + · · · + n,
where n is an input.
The best way to do it is to use the closed form
or the formula
n(n + 1)
Sn = .
2
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#include <stdio.h>
int main() // temp26a.c
{
int n;
printf("Enter a +ve integer: ");
scanf("%d", &n);
printf("1+ ...+%d = %d\n",
n, n*(n+1)/2);
return 0;
}
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$ cc -Wall temp26a.c
$ ./a.out
Enter a +ve integer: 5
1+ ...+5 = 15

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An Alternate Way

But there are alternate ways of doing this

computation. They need not be better for this
particular problem, but can be generalized to
use for similar problems.

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read n; sum = 0;

5 0
n sum
sum = n + sum; −−n;
4 5
n sum
sum = n + sum; −−n;
3 9
n sum

sum = n + sum; −−n;

0 15
n sum
if (n == 0) print sum

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#include <stdio.h>
int main() // temp26.c
{
int n, sum = 0;
printf("Enter a +ve integer: ");
scanf("%d", &n);
while(n > 0) {
sum = n + sum ;
--n ;
}
printf("sum: %d\n", sum);
return 0;
}
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$ cc -Wall temp26.c
$ ./a.out
Enter a +ve integer: 5
sum: 15

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Note

 
The code

sum = n + sum ;
--n ;
 

is executed repeatedly with decremented values

of n as long as n is not equal to zero.

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while Statement

while statement in C is one of the constructs

used for iterative computation. The structure
or syntax of while is
 

 
while (expression) statement

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while Loop

Initialization

true expression false

statement

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Note

• The while-loop will not be entered if the

loop-control expression evaluates to false
(zero) even before the first iteration.
• break statement can be used to come out of
the while loop.

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More Succinct Code

 
 
while(n>0) sum += n-- ;

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Note

• Our while program destroys the input data.

That can be avoided by introducing a third
variable where the value of n can be copied.
• This program structure can be used to
compute any sum of the following form
where c is a known positive integer.
n
X
Sn = 1c + 2c + · · · + nc = kc.
k=1

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#include <stdio.h>
int main() // temp27.c
{
int n, sum = 0, m;
printf("Enter a +ve integer: ");
scanf("%d", &n);
m = n ; // save the value
while(n > 0) {
sum = n*n*n*n + sum ;
--n ;
}
printf("1^4 + ... + %d^4 = %d\n", m, sum);
return 0;
}
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Example IV

Write a program to compute the following sum:

Sn = 1c + 2c + 3c + · · · + nc ,
where n and c are input.
We use nested while-loops to solve the
problem.

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#include <stdio.h>
int main() // temp28.c
{
int n, c, sum = 0, m;
printf("Enter the number of terms: ");
scanf("%d", &n);
printf("Enter the power: ");
scanf("%d", &c);
m = n ; // save the value
while(n > 0) { // outer while
int i=0, p=1; // local to the block
while(i++ < c) p *= n; // inner while
sum += p;
--n ;
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}
printf("1^%d + ... + %d^%d = %d\n",
c, m, c, sum);
return 0;
}

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