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LabVIEW NationalInstruments

While Loops

Module by: National Instruments

A While Loop executes a subdiagram until a condition is met. The While Loop is similar to a Do Loop or a Repeat-Until Loop in text-based programming. Figure 1 shows a While Loop in LabVIEW, a flow chart equivalent of the While Loop functionality, and a pseudo code example of the functionality of the While Loop.

Figure 1

      The While Loop is located on the
      Functions>>Execution Control  palette. Select the
      While Loop from the palette then use the cursor to
      drag a selection rectangle around the section of the block
      diagram you want to repeat. When you release the mouse button, a
      While Loop boundary encloses the section you
      selected.
    

Add block diagram objects to the While Loop by dragging and dropping them inside the While Loop.

Note: The While Loop always executes at least once.

The While Loop executes the subdiagram until the conditional terminal, an input terminal, receives a specific Boolean value. The default behavior and appearance of the conditional terminal is Stop If True, shown in 2. When a conditional terminal is

Stop
	If True

, the While Loop executes its subdiagram until the conditional terminal receives a True value.

The iteration terminal, an output terminal, shown in 3, contains the number of completed iterations. The iteration count always starts at zero. During the first iteration, the iteration terminal returns 0.

In the block diagram in Figure 2, the

While
	Loop

executes until the subVI output is greater than or equal to 10.00 and the Enable control is True. The And function returns True only if both inputs are True. Otherwise, it returns False.

Figure 2

In the previous example, there is an increased probability of an infinite loop. Generally, the desired behavior is to have one condition met to stop the loop, rather than requiring both conditions to be met.

You can change the behavior and appearance of the conditional terminal by right-clicking the terminal or the border of the

While
	Loop

and selecting Continue if True, shown at left. You also can use the Operating tool to click the conditional terminal to change the condition. When a conditional terminal is Continue if True, the While Loop executes its subdiagram until the conditional terminal receives a False value, as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3

      The While Loop executes until the subVI output is
      less than 10.00 or the Enable control
      is False.
    

Structure Tunnels

Data can be passed out of or into a While Loop through a tunnel. Tunnels feed data into and out of structures. The tunnel appears as a solid block on the border of the While Loop. The block is the color of the data type wired to the tunnel. Data pass out of a loop after the loop terminates. When a tunnel passes data into a loop, the loop executes only after data arrive at the tunnel.

In Figure 4, the iteration terminal is connected to a tunnel. The value in the tunnel does not get passed to the Iteration Number indicator until the While Loop has finished execution.