Leo RFC 005: Countdown Loops

Authors

Max Bruce
Collin Chin
Alessandro Coglio
Eric McCarthy
Jon Pavlik
Damir Shamanaev
Damon Sicore
Howard Wu

Status

DRAFT

Summary

This proposal suggests adding countdown loops and inclusive loop ranges into Leo language.

Motivation

In the current design of the language only incremental ranges are allowed. Though in some cases there's a need for loops going in the reverse direction. This example demonstrates the bubble sort algorithm where countdown loops are mocked:

function bubble_sort(mut a: [u32; 10]) -> [u32; 10] {
    for i in 0..9 { // i counts up
        for j in 0..9-i { // i is flipped
            if (a[j] > a[j+1]) {
                let tmp = a[j];
                a[j] = a[j+1];
                a[j+1] = tmp;
            }
        }
    }
    return a
}

Having a countdown loop in the example above could improve readability and usability of the language by making it more natural to the developer.

However, if we imagined this example using a countdown loop, we would see that it wouldn't be possible to count to 0; because the first bound of the range is inclusive and the second is exclusive, and loops ranges must use only unsigned integers.

// loop goes 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8
for i in 0..9 { /* ... */ }

// loop goes 9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 
for i in 9..0 { /* ... */ }

Hence direct implementation of the coundown loop ranges would create asymmetry (1) and would not allow loops to count down to 0 (2). To implement coundown loops and solve these two problems we suggest adding an inclusive range bounds.

Design

Coundown loops

Countdown ranges do not need any changes to the existing syntax. However their functionality needs to be implemented in the compiler.

for i in 5..0 {}

Inclusive ranges

To solve loop asymmetry and to improve loop ranges in general we suggest adding inclusive range operator to Leo. Inclusive range would extend the second bound of the loop making it inclusive (instead of default - exclusive) therefore allowing countdown loops to reach 0 value.

// default loop: 0,1,2,3,4
for i in 0..5 {}

// inclusive range: 0,1,2,3,4,5
for i in 0..=5 {}

Drawbacks

Effect on Ecosystem

Suggested change should have no effect on ecosystem because of its backward compatibility.

Alternatives

Coundown loops can be mocked manually.

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