Loop from end to start

[Juliette]

Hello,

If I want to display the first 5 numbers I make my loop like this:

dcl-s i packed(3:0);
dcl-s message varchar(50);
dcl-s waitInput char(1);

FOR i = 1 by 1 to 5;
      message = %char(i);
      dsply message '' waitInput;
ENDFOR;

I would like to display 5, 4, 3, 2 ,1

I think my loop has a problem?

dcl-s i packed(3:0);
dcl-s message varchar(50);
dcl-s waitInput char(1);

FOR i = 5 by 5 to 1;
    message = %char(i);
    dsply message '' waitInput;
ENDFOR;

[MFisher]

Does " BY 5 to 1" mean it increments 5 at a time ?

[JonBoy]

You need to specify the initial value as 5 and then use down to (you can probably also do it by saying by -1 but I haven't checked.

FOR i = 5 downto 1 ;
   message = %char(i);
   dsply message ' ' waitInput;
ENDFOR;

By the way - the "message" field is not needed - much simpler to do it this way:

FOR i = 5 downto 1 ;
   dsply (  %char(i) )  ' ' waitInput;
ENDFOR;

By building the value to be displayed in parens the compiler treats it as the single field source for the display.

This let's you do stuff like:
Dsply ( 'This is loop ' + %char(i) );

[Juliette]

Does " BY 5 to 1" mean it increments 5 at a time ?

No, I don't think that I have to use `BY`....

[Juliette]

You need to specify the initial value as 5 and then use down to (you can probably also do it by saying by -1 but I haven't checked.

FOR i = 5 downto 1 ;
message = %char(i);
dsply message ' ' waitInput;
ENDFOR;

By the way - the "message" field is not needed - much simpler to do it this way:

FOR i = 5 downto 1 ;
dsply ( %char(i) ) ' ' waitInput;
ENDFOR;

By building the value to be displayed in parens the compiler treats it as the single field source for the display.

This let's you do stuff like:
Dsply ( 'This is loop ' + %char(i) );

Thank you, it is exactly what I wanted.