Can we use for loop in bisection method for root finding instead of while loop

f = @ (x) x.^2+5.*x-10 ;

xl=0;

xu=10;

xm = (xl+xu)/2;

tol = 1e-10;

iter = 0;

while(abs(f(xm))>tol) %do bisection till f(xm) is small enough

if (f(xl)*f(xm)<0) % determine which bracket root exists

xu = xm;

else

xl = xm;

end

iter = iter+1; %increase iteration value

xm = (xl+xu)/2 %new mean value

end

iter

Answer 1

[Bjorn Gustavsson]

Yes it is possible, but why? You could use the break trick to exit the for-loop at convergence, but why bother, code should be clearly written - in the long-term vastly benefitial to marginal gains for a simple root-finding function.

HTH

Answer 2

[Walter Roberson]

Yes, a for loop makes sense to put an upper limit on iterations in case something goes wrong with the convergence. if/break works fine to leave the loop early.