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Sanny Builder 4 Tutorial

FOR Loop

In Chapter II, we learned about the while loop which repeats as long as a condition is true. But what if you know exactly how many times you want to repeat something? The for loop is designed for exactly that.

Syntax

for <variable> = <start> to <end>
    <body>
end

The loop variable starts at <start> and increases by 1 after each iteration until it passes <end>.

For example, to add money to the player 5 times:

int i
for i = 1 to 5
    add_score 0 100
    wait 250
end

The variable i will take values 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and the loop body will execute 5 times. After the loop, the player has $500 more.

Counting Backwards with DOWNTO

To count in the opposite direction, use downto instead of to. The loop variable decreases by 1 after each iteration:

int i
for i = 5 downto 1
    print_formatted_now "Countdown: %d" 1000 i
    wait 1000
end


print_string_now "Go!" 2000

This displays 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and then Go!.

Custom Step

By default, the loop variable changes by 1 on each iteration. You can change this with the step keyword:

int i
for i = 0 to 100 step 10
    print_formatted_now "Value: %d" 500 i
    wait 500
end

This displays 0, 10, 20, 30, …, 100.

step works with downto as well:

int i
for i = 100 downto 0 step 25
    print_formatted_now "Value: %d" 500 i
    wait 500
end

Using Constants with FOR

Constants pair nicely with for loops to make the code easy to configure:

const MAX_ROUNDS = 10
const REWARD = 50


int round
for round = 1 to MAX_ROUNDS
    add_score 0 REWARD
    wait 500
end

Changing MAX_ROUNDS or REWARD at the top of the script instantly adjusts the loop behavior.