Question

Write a for loop that displays every fifth number, zero through 100.

Short answer

Question: Write a for loop that displays every fifth number between zero and 100, including the endpoints. Use the provided step-by-step solution to guide your answer. Answer: To display every fifth number between 0 and 100, including the endpoints, use the following for loop: ```python for number in range(0, 101, 5): print(number) ```

Step-by-step solution

Define the range for the for loop

To create a for loop that iterates through every fifth number between 0 and 100, define the range function with starting value (0), stopping value (101, since the last value is exclusive) and a step value of 5.

Set up the for loop

Create the for loop using the range function with the specified values. Then, use a variable (for example, "number") to represent each value in the range.

Display every fifth number

Inside the for loop, use the print function to display the current value of the variable representing each number in the specified range. Example code for this exercise: ```python for number in range(0, 101, 5): print(number) ```

Key concepts

Control Structures

Understanding control structures is fundamental to grasping the logic of programming. In Java, as in many other languages, control structures determine the flow of program execution. They decide whether or not certain blocks of code are executed, how many times they are executed, and under what conditions.

Two main types of control structures are conditional statements, such as 'if' or 'switch', and loops, such as 'for', 'while', and 'do...while'. Loops are particularly important when you want to perform a task repeatedly until a certain condition is met.

For the exercise at hand, we would use a 'for' loop— a control structure perfect for executing a code block several times with a known iteration count. In Java, a 'for' loop provides a concise way of writing the loop structure. Instead of manually incrementing a counter and writing a loop termination condition, the 'for' loop syntax encompasses everything in a single line, making the code neat and readable.

Loop Iteration

Loop iteration refers to the process of repeating a block of code a certain number of times. In Java, the 'for' loop is an efficient way to iterate over a range of values.

The 'for' loop consists of three parts: the initializer, the termination condition, and the incrementation. The loop begins with the initializer, which usually initializes one or more loop counters. Next, the termination condition is checked. If the condition is true, the code block within the loop executes. After executing the code block, the incrementation step is performed.

In the example of our exercise, the loop starts with an initializer of zero, the termination condition is set to repeat the loop while the counter is less than or equal to 100, and the incrementation step is an addition of five to the counter. This causes the loop to execute its code block—to print the current loop value—every fifth iteration from zero to a hundred.

Range Function

In Java, the range function isn't built-in like it is in some other programming languages, such as Python. However, the concept remains similar. A range is a sequence of numbers that follows a certain pattern, typically an arithmetic sequence. Java users often create a range using a 'for' loop to iterate over a sequence of numbers.

To mimic a 'range function' in Java, a 'for' loop uses a starting point, an end limit, and a step value to control the number of iterations. This approach facilitates iterating through a set of values without the necessity to manually update and check the loop's counter variable.

In our exercise, although presented in a Pythonic syntax, the concept in Java would be to initiate a 'for' loop, starting at 0, ending at 100 (with '<= 100' as the termination condition for intuitive understanding, not '101' as in Python), and increasing the counter by 5 after each iteration. Writing such a structured loop allows for clear and effective iterations over a specified range, catering to the needs of various programming scenarios.