Editing Foreach loop (section)

=== C ===
The [[C (programming language)|C]] language does not have collections or a foreach construct. However, it has several standard data structures that can be used as collections, and foreach can be made easily with a [[C macro|macro]].

However, two obvious problems occur:
* The macro is unhygienic: it declares a new variable in the existing scope which remains after the loop.
* One foreach macro cannot be defined that works with different collection types (e.g., array and linked list) or that is extensible to user types.

C string as a collection of char
<syntaxhighlight lang="c" highlight="4-6" line>
#include <stdio.h>

/* foreach macro viewing a string as a collection of char values */
#define foreach(ptrvar, strvar) \
char* ptrvar; \
for (ptrvar = strvar; (*ptrvar) != '\0'; *ptrvar++)

int main(int argc, char** argv) {
 char* s1 = "abcdefg";
 char* s2 = "123456789";
 foreach (p1, s1) {
  printf("loop 1: %c\n", *p1);
 }
 foreach (p2, s2) {
  printf("loop 2: %c\n", *p2);
 }
 return 0;
}
</syntaxhighlight>

C int array as a collection of int (array size known at compile-time)
<syntaxhighlight lang="c" highlight="4-6" line>
#include <stdio.h>

/* foreach macro viewing an array of int values as a collection of int values */
#define foreach(intpvar, intarr) \
int* intpvar; \
for (intpvar = intarr; intpvar < (intarr + (sizeof(intarr)/sizeof(intarr[0]))); ++intpvar)

int main(int argc, char** argv) {
 int a1[] = {1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8};
 int a2[] = {3, 1, 4, 1, 5, 9};
 foreach (p1, a1) {
  printf("loop 1: %d\n", *p1);
 }
 foreach (p2, a2) {
  printf("loop 2: %d\n", *p2);
 }
 return 0;
}
</syntaxhighlight>

Most general: string or array as collection (collection size known at run-time)
: ''{{code|idxtype}} can be removed and <code>[[typeof]](col[0])</code> used in its place with [[GNU Compiler Collection|GCC]]''
<syntaxhighlight lang="c" highlight="5-8" line>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>

/* foreach macro viewing an array of given type as a collection of values of given type */
#define arraylen(arr) (sizeof(arr)/sizeof(arr[0]))
#define foreach(idxtype, idxpvar, col, colsiz) \
idxtype* idxpvar; \
for (idxpvar = col; idxpvar < (col + colsiz); ++idxpvar)

int main(int argc, char** argv) {
 char* c1 = "collection";
 int c2[] = {3, 1, 4, 1, 5, 9};
 double* c3;
 int c3len = 4;
 c3 = (double*)calloc(c3len, sizeof(double)); 
 c3[0] = 1.2; c3[1] = 3.4; c3[2] = 5.6; c3[3] = 7.8;

 foreach (char, p1, c1, strlen(c1)) {
  printf("loop 1: %c\n", *p1);
 }
 foreach (int, p2, c2, arraylen(c2)) {
  printf("loop 2: %d\n", *p2);
 }
 foreach (double, p3, c3, c3len) {
  printf("loop 3: %.1lf\n", *p3);
 }
 return 0;
}
</syntaxhighlight>