Visual Basic 2015 Lesson 15: Looping for Repetitive Jobs

In Visual Basic 2015, looping is a process that involves a  procedure that runs repetitively until a certain condition is met. For example, we can design a program that adds a series of numbers until the sum exceeds a certain value, or a program that asks the user to enter data repeatedly until he or she enters the word ‘Finish’.  There are three types of Loops in Visual Basic 2015,  namely the For…..Next loop, the Do loop and the While…..End While loop

15.1 For….Next Loop

In Visual Basic 2015 , the structure of a For…Next loop is as shown below:

For counter=startNumber to endNumber (Step increment)
One or more Visual Basic 2015 statements
Next
In order to exit a For…..Next Loop, you need to place the Exit For statement within the loop. It is normally used together with the If….Then statement. For its application, you can refer to example 15.1 d.

Example 15.1 a
Dim counter as Integer
For counter=1 to 10
ListBox1.Items.Add (counter)
Next
* The program will enter number 1 to 10 into the list box.

Example 15.1b

The following program will calculate the sum of the numbers 0+10+20+30+40+……+100
Dim counter , sum As Integer
For counter=1 to 100 step 10
sum+=counter
ListBox1.Items.Add (sum)
Next

Example 15.1c

This program will compute a series of subtractions as follow:
1000-100-95-90-………-5. In this case  increment is negative.
Dim counter, sum As Integer
sum = 1000
For counter = 100 To 5 Step -5
sum – = counter
ListBox1.Items.Add(sum)
Next

Example 15.1d

This program uses Exit …For to escape the loop  when n is greater than 6.
Dim n as Integer
For n=1 to 10
If n>6 then
Exit For
End If
Else
ListBox1.Items.Add ( n)
Next
End If
Next

15.2 Do Loop

In Visual Basic 2015, there are several  Do Loop structures, as shown below:
a) Do While condition
Block of one or more Visual Basic 2015 statements
Loop
b) Do
Block of one or more Visual Basic 2015 statements
Loop While condition
c) Do Until condition
Block of one or more Visual Basic 2012 statements
Loop
d) Do
Block of one or more Visual Basic 2015 statements
Loop Until condition
* Exiting the Loop
We can also use Exit Do to escape the loop.
Let’ s examine the following examples:

Example 15.2(a)

In this example, the procedure will keep on adding the initial number by 1 until  it exceeds 1000.
Do while counter <=1000
TextBox1.Text=counter
counter +=1
Loop
We can rewrite the procedure above and achieve the same result. The code is shown as follows:
Do
TextBox1.Text=counter
counter+=1
Loop until counter>1000

Example 15.2(b)

In this example, the procedure will keep on adding a number by 1 and display the results in a list box. The process stops when it has repeated 100 times.
Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
Dim sum, n As Integer
ListBox1.Items.Add(“n” & vbTab & “Sum”)
ListBox1.Items.Add(“———————-”)
Do
n += 1
sum += n
ListBox1.Items.Add(n & vbTab & sum)
If n = 100 Then
Exit Do
End If
Loop
End Sub
* The loop in the above example can be replaced by the following loop:
Do Until n = 10
n += 1
sum += n
ListBox1.Items.Add(n & vbTab & sum)
Loop
The output is as shown in Figure 15.1

                                              Figure 15.1

15.3 While….End While Loop

In Visual Basic 2015, the structure of a While….End While Loop is very similar to the Do Loop. it takes the following form:
While conditions
Visual Basic 2015 statements
End While
Example 15.3
Private Sub Button1_Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
Dim sum, n As Integer
ListBox1.Items.Add(“n” & vbTab & “sum”)
ListBox1.Items.Add(“———————-“)
While n <> 10
n += 1
sum += n
ListBox1.Items.Add(n & vbTab & sum)
End While
End Sub