I'm trying to understand why the output for z is always -1 whenever I trace the variable. I'm counting coins and I'm trying to set up a for loop, however, I'm always prompted by an error because of z = -1.
for (var z:int = coins.length; z >= 0; z--);
{
trace(z);
trace(coins.length);
}
The output answer I get for these two variables are:
Z = -1
coins.length = 3
Why is this the case? Because all I'm seeing on the output box is:
-1
-1
-1
-1
-1
-1
keeps repeating
If we were to go by the for loop logic, shouldn't the variable z be like this instead?
2
1
0
What can be wrong?
There's your problem:
for (var z:int = coins.length; z >= 0; z--); // the semicolon at the end.
With the semicolon, the loop ends. You wrote a loop without a body. That's perfectly valid and executes just fine.
After the loop, the following code is executed once:
{
trace(z);
trace(coins.length);
}
z is -1, because that's its last value in the loop which causes the loop to stop executing. coins.length never changed and has a value according to the array.
If we were to go by the for loop logic, shouldn't the variable z be like this instead?
2
1
0
No, because it starts at 3, not 2.