Python 3 - Use In For In Range Loop To Do Differently Occurring Tasks

Problem

I wanted a fast way to run through an operation in a loop and then to do another operation, say every fifth time in Python 3.
You can run a loop in a certain range quite easily:

count = 1


for i in range (0,20):

        print(count)

 count += 1 

This would reveal a list of numbers from 1 - 20 one under the other.
I knew that this was what I wanted to do but how could I print print ("ping") every fifth number (eg after,0,5,10,15,20)
My first direction was to use the step option in range which you can add to the end of your arguments:

count = 1 


for i in range (0,20,5):


     print(count)


count += 1

This would display:
1
2
3
4
The operation will loop through 20 times but every fifth time (step) the operation will print a number.
Not what I had in mind but useful.

Solution

The solution turned out to be fairly simple:

What I did was use two loops. One nested in the other. The first one printed the "ping". The nested loop counted through the numbers.
If I wanted the "ping" printed after every 5th time in a range of 20 it would occur 4 times (20/5 = 4). So I set the "ping" for loop for the to start at 0 and end at 4.
In the nested for loop I run the loop to 5 adding 1 to the count.
Now when the "ping" loop is run the first time it prints "ping" and counts from 1-5. The second time the "ping" loop runs it prints "ping" again and counts from 6-10.
This will continue until after the "ping" loop runs it's last loop at 4.

Applications

This might be useful for adding a note or a warning after a certain amount of data iterates through.

	#! Python 3
	'''
	Aim: To ping every fifth time in a count while
	printing out the count 1 to 20
	'''
	count = 1
	for i in range(0,4):
	print ("ping")
	for n in range (0,5):
	print (count)
	count += 1
	'''
	Result:
	ping
	1
	2
	3
	4
	5
	ping
	6
	7
	8
	9
	10
	ping
	11
	12
	13
	14
	15
	ping
	16
	17
	18
	19
	20
	'''

view raw NthNumberRangeLoop.py hosted with ❤ by GitHub

In a simple shooting game you might want to shoot a number of times before a rocket is launched if the fire key is still depressed.