[Tutor] confusion with else command

Peter Otten __peter__ at web.de
Tue Feb 7 20:08:16 CET 2012


Debashish Saha wrote:

> for i in range(1, 8):
>     print(i)
>     if i==3:
>         break
> else:
>     print('The for loop is over')

> Output:
> 1
> 2
> 3
> 
> Question:
> 
> but after breaking the for loop why the else loop could not work?

The else suite is not invoked because that's the way Guido intended it ;)
It was designed for sitiuations like the following:

for beast in animals:
    if is_it_a_cat(beast):
        print("There's a cat among those animals")
        break
else:
    print("Sorry, there aren't any cats")
print("I've been looking for a cat") # you don't need an else for that

i. e. it's only invoked if the loop terminates normally (no break, and of 
course no return or exception).



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