For statements

A "for" statement specifies repeated execution of a block. There are three forms: The iteration may be controlled by a single condition, a "for" clause, or a "range" clause.

ForStmt = "for" [ Condition | ForClause | RangeClause ] Block .
Condition = Expression .

[For statements with single condition](#for-statements-with-single-condition]

In its simplest form, a "for" statement specifies the repeated execution of a block as long as a boolean condition evaluates to true. The condition is evaluated before each iteration. If the condition is absent, it is equivalent to the boolean value true.

for a < b {
    a *= 2
}

For statements with for clause

A "for" statement with a ForClause is also controlled by its condition, but additionally it may specify an init and a post statement, such as an assignment, an increment or decrement statement. The init statement may be a short variable declaration, but the post statement must not. Variables declared by the init statement are re-used in each iteration.

ForClause = [ InitStmt ] ";" [ Condition ] ";" [ PostStmt ] .
InitStmt = SimpleStmt .
PostStmt = SimpleStmt .

for i := 0; i < 10; i++ {
    f(i)
}

If non-empty, the init statement is executed once before evaluating the condition for the first iteration; the post statement is executed after each execution of the block (and only if the block was executed). Any element of the ForClause may be empty but the semicolons are required unless there is only a condition. If the condition is absent, it is equivalent to the boolean value true.

for cond { S() }    is the same as    for ; cond ; { S() }
for      { S() }    is the same as    for true     { S() }

For statements with range clause

A "for" statement with a "range" clause iterates through all entries of an array, slice, string or map, or values received on a channel. For each entry it assigns iteration values to corresponding iteration variables if present and then executes the block.

RangeClause = [ ExpressionList "=" | IdentifierList ":=" ] "range" Expression .

The expression on the right in the "range" clause is called the range expression, which may be an array, pointer to an array, slice, string, map, or channel permitting receive operations. As with an assignment, if present the operands on the left must be addressable or map index expressions; they denote the iteration variables. If the range expression is a channel, at most one iteration variable is permitted, otherwise there may be up to two. If the last iteration variable is the blank identifier, the range clause is equivalent to the same clause without that identifier.

The range expression x is evaluated once before beginning the loop, with one exception: if the range expression is an array or a pointer to an array and at most one iteration variable is present, only the range expression's length is evaluated; if that length is constant, by definition the range expression itself will not be evaluated.

Function calls on the left are evaluated once per iteration. For each iteration, iteration values are produced as follows if the respective iteration variables are present:

Range expression                          1st value          2nd value
 
array or slice  a  [n]E, *[n]E, or []E    index    i  int    a[i]       E
string          s  string type            index    i  int    see below  rune
map             m  map[K]V                key      k  K      m[k]       V
channel         c  chan E, <-chan E       element  e  E

1. For an array, pointer to array, or slice value a, the index iteration values are produced in increasing order, starting at element index 0. If at most one iteration variable is present, the range loop produces iteration values from 0 up to len(a)-1 and does not index into the array or slice itself. For a nil slice, the number of iterations is 0.
2. For a string value, the "range" clause iterates over the Unicode code points in the string starting at byte index 0. On successive iterations, the index value will be the index of the first byte of successive UTF-8-encoded code points in the string, and the second value, of type rune, will be the value of the corresponding code point. If the iteration encounters an invalid UTF-8 sequence, the second value will be 0xFFFD, the Unicode replacement character, and the next iteration will advance a single byte in the string.
3. The iteration order over maps is not specified and is not guaranteed to be the same from one iteration to the next. If a map entry that has not yet been reached is removed during iteration, the corresponding iteration value will not be produced. If a map entry is created during iteration, that entry may be produced during the iteration or may be skipped. The choice may vary for each entry created and from one iteration to the next. If the map is nil, the number of iterations is 0.
4. For channels, the iteration values produced are the successive values sent on the channel until the channel is closed. If the channel is nil, the range expression blocks forever.

The iteration values are assigned to the respective iteration variables as in an assignment statement.

The iteration variables may be declared by the "range" clause using a form of short variable declaration (:=). In this case their types are set to the types of the respective iteration values and their scope is the block of the "for" statement; they are re-used in each iteration. If the iteration variables are declared outside the "for" statement, after execution their values will be those of the last iteration.

var testdata *struct {
    a *[7]int
}
for i, _ := range testdata.a {
    // testdata.a is never evaluated; len(testdata.a) is constant
    // i ranges from 0 to 6
    f(i)
}

var a [10]string
for i, s := range a {
    // type of i is int
    // type of s is string
    // s == a[i]
    g(i, s)
}

var key string
var val interface {}  // value type of m is assignable to val
m := map[string]int{"mon":0, "tue":1, "wed":2, "thu":3, "fri":4, "sat":5, "sun":6}
for key, val = range m {
    h(key, val)
}
// key == last map key encountered in iteration
// val == map[key]

var ch chan Work = producer()
for w := range ch {
    doWork(w)
}

// empty a channel
for range ch {}