fish-shell/doc_src/for.txt
Kurtis Rader 905766fca2 Hoist for loop control var to enclosing scope (#4376)
* Hoist `for` loop control var to enclosing scope

It should be possible to reference the last value assigned to a `for`
loop control var when the loop terminates. This makes it easier to detect
if we broke out of the loop among other things.  This change makes fish
`for` loops behave like most other shells.

Fixes #1935

* Remove redundant line
2017-09-08 21:14:26 -07:00

37 lines
1.4 KiB
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\section for for - perform a set of commands multiple times.
\subsection for-synopsis Synopsis
\fish{synopsis}
for VARNAME in [VALUES...]; COMMANDS...; end
\endfish
\subsection for-description Description
`for` is a loop construct. It will perform the commands specified by `COMMANDS` multiple times. On each iteration, the local variable specified by `VARNAME` is assigned a new value from `VALUES`. If `VALUES` is empty, `COMMANDS` will not be executed at all. The `VARNAME` is visible when the loop terminates and will contain the last value assigned to it. If `VARNAME` does not already exist it will be set in the local scope. For our purposes if the `for` block is inside a function there must be a local variable with the same name. If the `for` block is not nested inside a function then global and universal variables of the same name will be used if they exist.
\subsection for-example Example
\fish
for i in foo bar baz; echo $i; end
# would output:
foo
bar
baz
\endfish
\subsection for-notes Notes
The `VARNAME` was local to the for block in releases prior to 3.0.0. This means that if you did something like this:
\fish
for var in a b c
if break_from_loop
break
end
end
echo $var
\endfish
The last value assigned to `var` when the loop terminated would not be available outside the loop. What `echo $var` would write depended on what it was set to before the loop was run. Likely nothing.