While loop in Go

A while loop allows your program to perform a set of instructions as long as a condition is satisfied.

Go has no while keyword: a for loop with only a condition does the same job.

Here is the structure of a while loop:

for condition {
	instruction1
	instruction2
	...
}

Let's check an example:

count := 1
for count <= 5 {
	fmt.Println("I made a mistake")
	count++
}
fmt.Println("Finished!")

The output of this program is:

I made a mistake
I made a mistake
I made a mistake
I made a mistake
I made a mistake
Finished!

And this is what the computer does behind the scenes during this loop:

0. Creates and initializes a variable count = 1

1. First iteration:
	a. Is count <= 5 true? <=> Is 1 <= 5 true? Yes.
	b. fmt.Println("I made a mistake") => Output: I made a mistake
	c. count++ => count becomes 2

2. Second iteration:
	a. Is count <= 5 true? <=> Is 2 <= 5 true? Yes.
	b. fmt.Println("I made a mistake") => Output: I made a mistake
	c. count++ => count becomes 3

3. Third iteration:
	a. Is count <= 5 true? <=> Is 3 <= 5 true? Yes.
	b. fmt.Println("I made a mistake") => Output: I made a mistake
	c. count++ => count becomes 4

4. Fourth iteration:
	a. Is count <= 5 true? <=> Is 4 <= 5 true? Yes.
	b. fmt.Println("I made a mistake") => Output: I made a mistake
	c. count++ => count becomes 5

5. Fifth iteration:
	a. Is count <= 5 true? <=> Is 5 <= 5 true? Yes.
	b. fmt.Println("I made a mistake") => Output: I made a mistake
	c. count++ => count becomes 6

6. Sixth iteration:
	a. Is count <= 5 true? <=> Is 6 <= 5 true? No.
	b. Terminate the loop.


7. fmt.Println("Finished!") => Output: Finished!

Pro Tip:

A while loop is essentially an if statement that repeats itself over and over until the condition becomes false.

Assignment

Let's print "I promise to learn coding" 5 times using a loop.

Hint
Look at the examples above if you get stuck.