In Lua, for is a loop that repeats a block of code for a specified number of times. The basic syntax of the for loop with a step in Lua is:
for variable = start, stop, step do
-- code to be executed
end
Here's what each component means:
- variable is the loop variable which takes on values between start and stop in increments of step.
- start is the initial value of the loop variable.
- stop is the final value of the loop variable. The loop will terminate when the variable exceeds this value.
- step is the increment by which the loop variable increases each time the loop runs. This can be any positive or negative number.
Here's an example of using a for loop with a step in Lua to print even numbers between 2 and 10:
for i = 2, 10, 2 do
print(i)
end
This code will output:
2
4
6
8
10
In this example, i starts at 2, increments by 2 until it reaches 10, and the loop terminates. Inside the loop, the print function is used to output the current value of i.
You can also use negative values of step to count down instead of up. For example, here's how to print numbers in reverse order from 10 to 1 using a for loop with a step of -1:
for i = 10, 1, -1 do
print(i)
end
This code will output:
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
In this example, i starts at 10, decrements by 1 until it reaches 1, and the loop terminates.