Question

I have a project that reads: “There will be no conditional statements (if, switch, or,…).” I’m not sure if this includes for and while loops, since both technically run on conditions. Could I get away with saying that they’re “conditional loops” instead?

Answer 1

It would probably be acceptable to use loops (for, while,…), but you would need to check with the project author. I tend to treat loops and conditional statements separately, as they usually have different purposes…

• Conditional statements like if and switch will make a choice out of a list of options. They only run once.
• Loops like for and while are typically designed to run a piece of code multiple times.

Of course this is only a generalisation, and everyone probably has a different opinion, but I certainly treat them differently because they have different primary purposes.

For extra credit, Wikipedia seems to agree. The If Statement is a conditional operator, and the For Loop is an iteration statement.