C++ Nested Loops – How to Use Variable Nested For Loops

c++for-loopnested

I'm trying to figure out how I can use recursion to do n-level nested for loops.
For example, if n=3, there would be 3 'levels'

for(z=0;z<6;z++){
   for(y=0;y<6;y++){
      for(x=0;x<6;x++){
         if (z+y+x==f){
            //do something
         } 
      }
   }
}

and so on.

I can't seem to figure out how I would be able to place the if loop in the last for loop and how I can access the variables of previous for loops from the if statement. I know that the question of variable nested loops has been asked alot of times, and I have looked through all of them. But none seem to help me.

Could someone present an easy way of using recursion to achieve this, keeping in mind that I'm still a beginner in c++, to point me in the right direction?

The use case is as follows:

Write a program to input the number of dice m. The program will output the total number of possible cases, the number of possible cases for each possible n and the n with the highest probability. Note: only one input m is read in. n is computed by the program

Example if user enters m=2 then program should output

The total number of possible cases is 36.
The possibilities are
2 1
3 2
4 3
.
.
.
12 1

Best Answer

For efficiency, I've avoided recursion. Also, it doesn't use any specific c++ stuff - it will work fine on C as well.

We're trying to create N nested "for" loops. Instead of using

for(int i = 0; i<max; i++)
  for (int j = 0; j<max; j++)
    ...

I'll be replacing i, j, ... with an array: i[0], i[1], ..., i[n-1].

Here's my solution:

const int n = /*Insert N here: how many loops do you need?*/;
int i[n+1]; // if "n" is not known before hand, then this array will need to be created dynamically.
//Note: there is an extra element at the end of the array, in order to keep track of whether to exit the array.

for (int a=0; a<n+1; a++) {
  i[a]=0;
}

int MAX = 79; //That's just an example, if all of the loops are identical: e.g. "for(int i=0; i<79; i++)". If the value of MAX changes for each loop, then make MAX an array instead: (new) int MAX [n]; MAX[0]=10; MAX[1]=20;...;MAX[n-1]=whatever.

int p = 0; //Used to increment all of the indicies correctly, at the end of each loop.
while (i[n]==0) {//Remember, you're only using indicies i[0], ..., i[n-1]. The (n+1)th index, i[n], is just to check whether to the nested loop stuff has finished.

  //DO STUFF HERE. Pretend you're inside your nested for loops. The more usual i,j,k,... have been replaced here with i[0], i[1], ..., i[n-1].


  //Now, after you've done your stuff, we need to increment all of the indicies correctly.
  i[0]++;
  // p = 0;//Commented out, because it's replaced by a more efficient alternative below.
  while(i[p]==MAX) {//(or "MAX[p]" if each "for" loop is different. Note that from an English point of view, this is more like "if(i[p]==MAX". (Initially i[0]) If this is true, then i[p] is reset to 0, and i[p+1] is incremented.
    i[p]=0;
    i[++p]++; //increase p by 1, and increase the next (p+1)th index
    if(i[p]!=MAX)
      p=0;//Alternatively, "p=0" can be inserted above (currently commented-out). This one's more efficient though, since it only resets p when it actually needs to be reset!
  }
}

There, that's all. Hopefully the comments make it clear what it's meant to be doing. I think it should be pretty efficient - almost as much as real nested for-loops. Most of the overhead is a one-off at the beginning, so this should be more efficient that using recursive functions etc

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