Parmanoir

Early on in my programming life, I decided on a specific use for each iterator which became the doxa I never deviated from :

• for I know the quantity of stuff to iterate, for (i=0; i<count; i++) will do just fine
• while I don't know what I'm getting, I'll be getting it while it's there : while (node) { ... node = node->next }

One nice thing with for is that you can skip to the next element with continue :

for (i=0; i<count; i++)
{
	element = array[i]
	if (!someConditionOnElement) continue

	compute !
}

Using while you need to open a brace to go through your condition and not skip the next element code node->next :

node = firstNode
while (node)
{
	if (someConditionOnNode)
	{
		compute !
	}
	node = node->next
}

Clunky ! But … opening one more brace can be avoided when looking back at the initial form of for :

for (initialization; condition; nextElement)

All these 3 are expressions : you can use operators, function calls, arithmetic, or the Comma Trick for multiple expressions separated by a comma — but not statements. That way we can fix our while to put the next element code in the for :

for (node=firstNode; node; node=node->next)
{
	if (!someConditionOnNode)	continue
	compute !
}

Cleaner and shorter !