for¶

Description¶

Loops over elements of an iterable object.

Syntax¶

for item in iterable:: suite
else:: suite
item: Item retrieved from the iterable. This variable is bound to the current element of the iterable.
iterable: Any iterable object.
else: Optional. Indicates block of code executed when loop terminates without calling break statement.
suite: Block of code to be executed.

Remarks¶

After each iteration, next item is retrieved from the iterable container. The loop’s suite is executed repeatedly until the container is empty.

Python has only one for loop, which is functionally the same as for each in some other languages. To loop specified number of times range() or xrange() function is used.

Example 1¶

>>> for i in range(3):
...     print i
...
0
1
2

Example 2¶

>>> # this example shows how files can be iterated over with a for loop
>>> for line in open("C:\\test\\test.txt"):
...     print line
...
line 1
line 2
line 3