Chapter 8
Statement-Level
Control Structures
Chapter 8 Topics
• Introduction
• Selection Statements
• Iterative Statements
• Unconditional Branching
• Guarded Commands
• Conclusions
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Levels of Control Flow
– Within expressions (Chapter 7)
– Among program units (Chapter 9)
– Among program statements (this
chapter)
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Control Structure
• A control structure is a control statement
and the statements whose execution it
controls
• Design question
– Should a control structure have multiple
entries?
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Selection Statements
• A selection statement provides the means
of choosing between two or more paths of
execution
• Two general categories:
– Two-way selectors
– Multiple-way selectors
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Two-Way Selection Statements
• General form:
if control_expression
then clause
else clause
• Design Issues:
– What is the form and type of the control
expression?
– How are the then and else clauses specified?
– How should the meaning of nested selectors
be specified?
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Python Example
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Pascal Example
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The Control Expression
• If the then reserved word or some other
syntactic marker is not used to introduce
the then clause, the control expression is
placed in parentheses
• In C89, C99, Python, and C++, the control
expression can be arithmetic
• In most other languages, the control
expression must be Boolean
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Clause Form
• In many contemporary languages, the then and
else clauses can be single statements or
compound statements
• In Perl, all clauses must be delimited by braces
(they must be compound)
• In Fortran 95, Ada, Python, and Ruby, clauses are
statement sequences
• Python uses indentation to define clauses
if x > y :
x = y
print " x was greater than y"
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Nesting Selectors
• Java example
if (sum == 0)
if (count == 0)
result = 0;
else result = 1;
• Which if gets the else?
• Java's static semantics rule: else matches
with the nearest previous if
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Nesting Selectors (continued)
• To force an alternative semantics,
compound statements may be used:
if (sum == 0) {
if (count == 0)
result = 0;
}
else result = 1;
• The above solution is used in C, C++, Java and
C#
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Nesting Selectors (continued)
• Statement sequences as clauses: Ruby
if sum == 0 then
if count == 0 then
result = 0
else
result = 1
end
end
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Nesting Selectors (continued)
• Python
if sum == 0 :
if count == 0 :
result = 0
else :
result = 1
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Selector Expressions
• In ML, F#, and LISP, the selector is an
expression
• F#
let y =
if x > 0 then x
else 2 * x
- If the if expression returns a value, there must
be an else clause (the expression could
produce output, rather than a value)
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Multiple-Way Selection
Statements
• Allow the selection of one of any number of
statements or statement groups
• Design Issues:
1. What is the form and type of the control expression?
2. How are the selectable segments specified?
3. Is execution flow through the structure restricted to
include just a single selectable segment?
4. How are case values specified?
5. What is done about unrepresented expression values?
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Multiple-Way Selection: Examples
• C, C++, Java, and JavaScript
switch (expression) {
case const_expr1: stmt1;
…
case const_exprn: stmtn;
[default: stmtn+1]
}
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Multiple-Way Selection: Examples
• Design choices for C’s switch statement
1. Control expression can be only an integer type
2. Selectable segments can be statement
sequences, blocks, or compound statements
3. Any number of segments can be executed in one
execution of the construct (there is no implicit
branch at the end of selectable segments)
4. default clause is for unrepresented values (if
there is no default, the whole statement does
nothing)
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Multiple-Way Selection: Examples
• C#
– Each selectable segment must end with an
unconditional branch (goto or break)
– Also, in C# the control expression and the
case constants can be strings
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Multiple-Way Selection: Examples
• Ruby has two forms of case statements-we’ll cover
only one
leap = case
when year % 400 == 0 then true
when year % 100 == 0 then false
else year % 4 == 0
end
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Multiple-Way Selection Using if
• Multiple Selectors can appear as direct
extensions to two-way selectors, using
else-if clauses, for example in Python:
if count < 10 :
bag1 = True
elif count < 100 :
bag2 = True
elif count < 1000 :
bag3 = True
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Multiple-Way Selection Using if
• The Python example can be written as a
Ruby case
case
when count < 10 then bag1 = true
when count < 100 then bag2 = true
when count < 1000 then bag3 = true
end
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Scheme’s Multiple Selector
• General form of a call to COND:
(COND
(predicate1 expression1)
…
(predicaten expressionn)
[(ELSE expressionn+1)]
)
- The ELSE clause is optional; ELSE is a synonym
for true
- Each predicate-expression pair is a parameter
- Semantics: The value of the evaluation of COND is
the value of the expression associated with the
first predicate expression that is true
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Iterative Statements
• The repeated execution of a statement or
compound statement is accomplished
either by iteration or recursion
• General design issues for iteration control
statements:
1. How is iteration controlled?
2. Where is the control mechanism in the loop?
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Counter-Controlled Loops
• A counting iterative statement has a loop
variable, and a means of specifying the
initial and terminal, and stepsize values
• Design Issues:
1. What are the type and scope of the loop
variable?
2. Should it be legal for the loop variable or loop
parameters to be changed in the loop body,
and if so, does the change affect loop control?
3. Should the loop parameters be evaluated only
once, or once for every iteration?
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Counter-Controlled Loops: Examples
• Ada
for var in [reverse] discrete_range
loop ...
end loop
• Design choices:
- Type of the loop variable is that of the discrete
range (A discrete range is a sub-range of an integer
or enumeration type).
- Loop variable does not exist outside the loop
- The loop variable cannot be changed in the loop, but
the discrete range can; it does not affect loop
control
- The discrete range is evaluated just once
– Cannot branch into the loop body
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Counter-Controlled Loops: Examples
• C-based languages
for ([expr_1] ; [expr_2] ; [expr_3]) statement
- The expressions can be whole statements, or even
statement sequences, with the statements separated by
commas
– The value of a multiple-statement expression is the value of
the last statement in the expression
– If the second expression is absent, it is an infinite loop
• Design choices:
- There is no explicit loop variable
- Everything can be changed in the loop
- The first expression is evaluated once, but the other two
are evaluated with each iteration
- It is legal to branch into the body of a for loop in C
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Counter-Controlled Loops: Examples
• Python
for loop_variable in object:
- loop body
[else:
- else clause]
– The object is often a range, which is either a list of
values in brackets ([2, 4, 6]), or a call to the range
function (range(5), which returns 0, 1, 2, 3, 4
– The loop variable takes on the values specified in the
given range, one for each iteration
– The else clause, which is optional, is executed if the
loop terminates normally
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Counter-Controlled Loops: Examples
• F#
– Because counters require variables, and functional
languages do not have variables, counter-controlled
loops must be simulated with recursive functions
let rec forLoop loopBody reps =
if reps <= 0 then ()
else
loopBody()
forLoop loopBody, (reps – 1)
- This defines the recursive function forLoop with the
parameters loopBody (a function that defines the
loop’s body) and the number of repetitions
- () means do nothing and return nothing
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User-Located Loop Control
Mechanisms
• Sometimes it is convenient for the
programmers to decide a location for
loop control (other than top or bottom of
the loop)
• Simple design for single loops (e.g., break)
while(i<5): if(i==3) break:
• Design issues for nested loops
1. Should the conditional be part of the exit?
2. Should control be transferable out of more
than one loop?
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User-Located Loop Control
Mechanisms
• C , C++, Python, Ruby, and C# have
unconditional unlabeled exits (break)
• Java and Perl have unconditional labeled
exits (break in Java, last in Perl)
• C, C++, and Python have an unlabeled
control statement, continue, that skips the
remainder of the current iteration, but
does not exit the loop
• Java and Perl have labeled versions of
continue
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Iteration Based on Data Structures
• The number of elements in a data
structure controls loop iteration
• Control mechanism is a call to an iterator
function that returns the next element in
some chosen order, if there is one; else
loop is terminate
• C's for can be used to build a user-
defined iterator:
for (p=root; p==NULL; traverse(p)){
...
}
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Iteration Based on Data Structures
(continued)
• PHP
- current points at one element of the array
- next moves current to the next element
- reset moves current to the first element
• Java 5.0 (uses for, although it is called
foreach)
For arrays and any other class that implements
the Iterable interface, e.g., ArrayList
for (String myElement : myList) { … }
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Iteration Based on Data Structures
(continued)
• C# and F# (and the other .NET languages) have
generic library classes, like Java 5.0 (for arrays,
lists, stacks, and queues). Can iterate over
these with the foreach statement. User-defined
collections can implement the IEnumerator
interface and also use foreach.
List<String> names = new List<String>();
[Link]("Bob");
[Link]("Carol");
[Link]("Ted");
foreach (Strings name in names)
[Link] ("Name: {0}", name);
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Iteration Based on Data Structures
(continued)
• Ruby blocks are sequences of code,
delimited by either braces or do and end
– Blocks can be used with methods to create
iterators
– Predefined iterator methods (times, each, upto):
[Link] {puts ″Hey!″}
[Link] {|value| puts value}
(list is an array; value is a block parameter)
[Link](5) {|x| print x, ″ ″}
- Ruby has a for statement, but Ruby converts
them to upto method calls
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Unconditional Branching
• Transfers execution control to a specified place in
the program
• Represented one of the most heated debates in
1960’s and 1970’s
• Major concern: Readability
• Some languages do not support goto statement
(e.g., Java)
• C# offers goto statement (can be used in switch
statements)
• Loop exit statements are restricted and somewhat
camouflaged goto’s
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Conclusions
• Variety of statement-level structures
• Choice of control statements beyond
selection and logical pretest loops is a
trade-off between language size and
writability
• Functional and logic programming
languages use quite different control
structures
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