Interview › Scripting (Bash, Groovy)
How do you write a for loop over a list and a C-style for loop? [Basic]
Answer
A list-style for loop iterates over words or array elements, while a C-style loop uses initialization, condition, and increment expressions. I prefer arrays for safe list iteration.
Technical explanation
Do not iterate over unquoted command output when values may contain spaces.
Use "${array[@]}" to preserve each array element as one item.
C-style loops are useful for counters, retries, and fixed numeric ranges.
Hands-on example
services=(api worker scheduler)
for svc in "${services[@]}"; do
echo "restart $svc"
done
for ((i=1; i<=3; i++)); do
echo "attempt $i"
done
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