# Loops in Go

> Learn how loops work in Go, which has only the for statement. See the classic for, a while-style loop, an infinite loop with break, and range iteration.

Author: [Flavio Copes](https://flaviocopes.com/about/) | Published: 2022-09-15 | Topics: [Go](https://flaviocopes.com/tags/go/) | Canonical: https://flaviocopes.com/golang-loops/

One of Go’s best features is to give you less choices.

We have one loop statement: `for`

We use it like this:

```go
for i := 0; i < 10; i++ {
	fmt.Println(i)
}
```

We first initialize a loop variable, then we set the *condition* we check for each iteration to decide if the loop should end, and finally the *post statement*, executed at the end of each iteration, which in this case increments `i`.

`i++` increments the `i` variable.

The `<` *operator* is used to compare `i` to the number `10` and returns `true` or `false`, determining if the loop body should be executed, or not.

We don’t need parentheses around this block, unlike other languages like C or [JavaScript](https://flaviocopes.com/javascript/).

Other languages offer different kind of loop structures, but Go only has this one. We can simulate a `while` loop, if you’re familiar with a language that has it, like this:

```go
i := 0

for i < 10 {
	fmt.Println(i)
  i++
}
```

We can also completely omit the condition and use `break` to end the loop when we want:

```go
i := 0

for {
	fmt.Println(i)

	if i < 10 {
		break
	}

  i++
}
```

I used a `if` statement inside the loop body, but we haven’t seen *conditionals* yet! We’ll do that next.

One thing I want to introduce now is `range`.

We can use `for` to iterate an array using this syntax:

```go
numbers := []int{1, 2, 3}

for i, num := range numbers {
	fmt.Printf("%d: %d\n", i, num)
}

//0: 1
//1: 2
//2: 3
```

> Note: I used `fmt.Printf()` which allows us to print any value to the terminal using the *verbs* `%d` which mean *decimal integer* and `\n` means add a line terminator
> 

It’s common to use this syntax when you don’t need to use the index:

```go
for _, num := range numbers {
  //...
}
```

using the special `_` character that means “ignore this” to avoid the Go compiler to raise an error saying “you’re not using the `i` variable!”.