The WHILE command, like the IF command, is a "block" command. That means that it controls a block, or sequence, of other commands. The general form of the WHILE command is as follows: WHILE logicalExpression command1 command2 ... END WHILE repeatedly executes the sequence of commands between the WHILE command and the corresponding END command as many times as necessary until the logical expression no longer evaluates to true. Obviously, some variable in the logical expression must be changed within the loop or the loop will never terminate. If the logical expression evaluates to true, then the body of the WHILE command will be executed. Otherwise, the body of the WHILE command sequence will be skipped. The logical expression may be a simple test, such as a <= 3. Or it may be a more complex expression such as a <=3 AND b between 1 10. In general, a logical expression is a simple test or a number of simple tests combined using the logical operators NOT, AND, OR, or XOR. For a full explanation of logical expressions, see the section titled "Logical Expressions" in the latter part of Statistics101 Resampling Stats commands. An early exit from a WHILE loop can be instigated by a BREAK command. See also the BREAK, REPEAT, FOREACH, UNTIL, and IF commands. |
The following program finds all the perfect squares below 1000 and generates a histogram from them. It also demonstrates how to increment a counter in a loop. COPY 1 number COPY 1 numberSquared WHILE numberSquared <1000 SCORE numberSquared squares ADD number 1 number MULTIPLY number number numberSquared END HISTOGRAMPLOT squares The above program produces the following output: Bin Bin Cum Bin# Start Center Freq Freq z 0 0.0 25.0 7 7 XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX 1 50.0 75.0 2 9 XXXXXXXXXXXX 2 100.0 125.0 3 12 XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX 3 150.0 175.0 2 14 XXXXXXXXXXXX 4 200.0 225.0 1 15 XXXXXX 5 250.0 275.0 2 17 XXXXXXXXXXXX 6 300.0 325.0 1 18 XXXXXX 7 350.0 375.0 1 19 XXXXXX 8 400.0 425.0 2 21 XXXXXXXXXXXX 9 450.0 475.0 1 22 XXXXXX 10 500.0 525.0 1 23 XXXXXX 11 550.0 575.0 1 24 XXXXXX 12 600.0 625.0 1 25 XXXXXX 13 650.0 675.0 1 26 XXXXXX 14 700.0 725.0 1 27 XXXXXX 15 750.0 775.0 1 28 XXXXXX 16 800.0 825.0 1 29 XXXXXX 17 850.0 875.0 0 29 18 900.0 925.0 1 30 XXXXXX 19 950.0 975.0 1 31 XXXXXX
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