Nested Loops in Java (With an Example)

January 3, 2018April 14, 2018 Vertex Academy nested loop java example, nested loops in java

This is one of the articles from our Java Tutorial for Beginners.

Task:

Write a program that will display asterisks in the console in the same pattern they're arranged here.

* * * * *
* * * * *
* * * * *

Solution:

public class Test{
	public static void main(String[] args){
 
		for(int i=0; i<3; i++){ 
			for(int j=0; j<5; j++){
				System.out.print("* ");
			}
			System.out.println();
		}
	}
}

public class Test{

public static void main(String[] args){

for(int i=0; i<3; i++){

for(int j=0; j<5; j++){

System.out.print("* ");

}

System.out.println();

}

If you run this code on your computer, you will see the following in the console:

* * * * *
* * * * *
* * * * *

Commentary:

The best approach is to divide this task into a few sub-tasks.

Step 1: Create a row of 5 asterisks with the help of the "for" loop.

Step 2: Display this row 3 times with the help of another "for" loop.

This means that we need nested loops.

The first step is to display the 5 asterisks in a row and we do that with the help of this code:

for(int j=0; j<5; j++){
	System.out.print("* ");
}

for(int j=0; j<5; j++){

System.out.print("* ");

}

Then we have to display this row 3 times, meaning we have to nest the second "for" loop inside the first "for" loop:

for(int i=0; i<3; i++){ 
	for(int j=0; j<5; j++){
		System.out.print("* ");
	}
	System.out.println();
}

for(int i=0; i<3; i++){

for(int j=0; j<5; j++){

System.out.print("* ");

}

System.out.println();

}

Mission accomplished 🙂

You can find more articles in our Java Tutorial for Beginners.