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For..next

The for..next control statement is a script iteration construct with a counter. The statements inside the loop enclosed by for and next will be executed for each value of the counter variable between specified low and high limits.

Syntax:  

For counter = expr1 to expr2 [ step expr3 ]

[statements]

[exit for [ ( when | unless ) condition ]

[statements]

Next [counter]

 

The expressions expr1, expr2 and expr3 are only evaluated the first time the loop is entered. The value of the counter variable may be changed by statements inside the loop, but this is not good programming practice.

If an exit for clause is encountered inside the loop, the execution of the script will be transferred to the first statement after the next clause denoting the end of the loop. An exit for clause can be made conditional by the optional use of a when or unless suffix.

Information noteSince the for..next statement is a control statement and as such is ended with either a semicolon or end-of-line, each of its three possible clauses (for..to..step, exit for and next) must not cross a line boundary.

Arguments:  

Argument Description
counter A variable name. If counter is specified after next it must be the same variable name as the one found after the corresponding for.
expr1 An expression which determines the first value of the counter variable for which the loop should be executed.
expr2 An expression which determines the last value of the counter variable for which the loop should be executed.
expr3 An expression which determines the value indicating the increment of the counter variable each time the loop has been executed.
condition a logical expression evaluating to True or False.
statements Any group of one or more Qlik Sense script statements.

Example 1: Loading a sequence of files

// LOAD files file1.csv..file9.csv

for a=1 to 9

LOAD * from file$(a).csv;

next

Example 2: Loading a random number of files

In this example, we assume there are data files x1.csv, x3.csv, x5.csv, x7.csv and x9.csv. Loading is stopped at a random point using the if rand( )<0.5 then condition.

for counter=1 to 9 step 2

set filename=x$(counter).csv;

if rand( )<0.5 then

exit for unless counter=1

end if

LOAD a,b from $(filename);

next

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