I'd say that it's a fact that using goto is considered a bad practice when it comes to programming in C/C++.
However, given the following code
for (i = 0; i < N; ++i)
{
for (j = 0; j < N; j++)
{
for (k = 0; k < N; ++k)
{
...
if (condition)
goto out;
...
}
}
}
out:
...
I wonder how to achieve the same behavior efficiently not using goto. What i mean is that we could do something like checking condition at the end of every loop, for example, but AFAIK goto will generate just one assembly instruction which will be a jmp. So this is the most efficient way of doing this I can think of.
Is there any other that is considered a good practice? Am I wrong when I say it is considered a bad practice to use goto? If I am, would this be one of those cases where it's good to use it?
Thank you
The (imo) best non-goto version would look something like this:
void calculateStuff()
{
// Please use better names than this.
doSomeStuff();
doLoopyStuff();
doMoreStuff();
}
void doLoopyStuff()
{
for (i = 0; i < N; ++i)
{
for (j = 0; j < N; j++)
{
for (k = 0; k < N; ++k)
{
/* do something */
if (/*condition*/)
return; // Intuitive control flow without goto
/* do something */
}
}
}
}
Splitting this up is also probably a good idea because it helps you keep your functions short, your code readable (if you name the functions better than I did) and dependencies low.
If you have deeply-nested loops like that and you must break out, I believe that goto is the best solution. Some languages (not C) have a break(N) statement that will break out of more than one loop. The reason C doesn't have it is that it's even worse than a goto: you have to count the nested loops to figure out what it does, and it's vulnerable to someone coming along later and adding or removing a level of nesting, without noticing that the break count needs to be adjusted.
Yes, gotos are generally frowned upon. Using a goto here is not a good solution; it's merely the least of several evils.
In most cases, the reason you have to break out of a deeply-nested loop is because you're searching for something, and you've found it. In that case (and as several other comments and answers have suggested), I prefer to move the nested loop to its own function. In that case, a return out of the inner loop accomplishes your task very cleanly.
(There are those who say that functions must always return at the end, not from the middle. Those people would say that the easy break-it-out-to-a-function solution is therefore invalid, and they'd force the use of the same awkward break-out-of-the-inner-loop technique(s) even when the search was split off to its own function. Personally, I believe those people are wrong, but your mileage may vary.)
If you insist on not using a goto, and if you insist on not using a separate function with an early return, then yes, you can do something like maintaining extra Boolean control variables and testing them redundantly in the control condition of each nested loop, but that's just a nuisance and a mess. (It's one of the greater evils that I was saying using a simple goto is lesser than.)
I think that goto is a perfectely sane thing to do here, and is one of it's exceptional use cases per the C++ Core Guidelines.
However, perhaps another solution to be considered is an IIFE lambda. In my opinion this is slightly more elegant than declaring a separate function!
[&] {
for (int i = 0; i < N; ++i)
for (int j = 0; j < N; j++)
for (int k = 0; k < N; ++k)
if (condition)
return;
}();
Thanks to JohnMcPineapple on reddit for this suggestion!
In this case you don't wan't to avoid using goto.
In general the use of goto should be avoided, however there are exceptions to this rule, and your case is a good example of one of them.
Let's look at the alternatives:
for (i = 0; i < N; ++i) {
for (j = 0; j < N; j++) {
for (k = 0; k < N; ++k) {
...
if (condition)
break;
...
}
if (condition)
break;
}
if (condition)
break;
}
Or:
int flag = 0
for (i = 0; (i < N) && !flag; ++i) {
for (j = 0; (j < N) && !flag; j++) {
for (k = 0; (k < N) && !flag; ++k) {
...
if (condition) {
flag = 1
break;
...
}
}
}
Neither of these is as concise or as readable as the goto version.
Using a goto is considered acceptable in cases where you're only jumping ahead (not backward) and doing so makes your code more readable and understandable.
If on the other hand you use goto to jump in both directions, or to jump into a scope which could potentially bypass variable initialization, that would be bad.
Here's a bad example of goto:
int x;
scanf("%d", &x);
if (x==4) goto bad_jump;
{
int y=9;
// jumping here skips the initialization of y
bad_jump:
printf("y=%d\n", y);
}
A C++ compiler will throw an error here because the goto jumps over the initialization of y. C compilers however will compile this, and the above code will invoke undefined behavior when attempting to print y which will be uninitialized if the goto occurs.
Another example of proper use of goto is in error handling:
void f()
{
char *p1 = malloc(10);
if (!p1) {
goto end1;
}
char *p2 = malloc(10);
if (!p2) {
goto end2;
}
char *p3 = malloc(10);
if (!p3) {
goto end3;
}
// do something with p1, p2, and p3
end3:
free(p3);
end2:
free(p2);
end1:
free(p1);
}
This performs all of the cleanup at the end of the function. Compare this to the alternative:
void f()
{
char *p1 = malloc(10);
if (!p1) {
return;
}
char *p2 = malloc(10);
if (!p2) {
free(p1);
return;
}
char *p3 = malloc(10);
if (!p3) {
free(p2);
free(p1);
return;
}
// do something with p1, p2, and p3
free(p3);
free(p2);
free(p1);
}
Where the cleanup is done in multiple places. If you later add more resources that need to be cleaned up, you have to remember to add the cleanup in all of these places plus the cleanup of any resources that were obtained earlier.
The above example is more relevant to C than C++ since in the latter case you can use classes with proper destructors and smart pointers to avoid manual cleanup.
Lambdas let you create local scopes:
[&]{
for (i = 0; i < N; ++i)
{
for (j = 0; j < N; j++)
{
for (k = 0; k < N; ++k)
{
...
if (condition)
return;
...
}
}
}
}();
if you also want the ability to return out of that scope:
if (auto r = [&]()->boost::optional<RetType>{
for (i = 0; i < N; ++i)
{
for (j = 0; j < N; j++)
{
for (k = 0; k < N; ++k)
{
...
if (condition)
return {};
...
}
}
}
}()) {
return *r;
}
where returning {} or boost::nullopt is a "break", and returning a value returns a value from the enclosing scope.
Another approach is:
for( auto idx : cube( {0,N}, {0,N}, {0,N} ) {
auto i = std::get<0>(idx);
auto j = std::get<1>(idx);
auto k = std::get<2>(idx);
}
where we generate an iterable over all 3 dimensions and make it a 1 deep nested loop. Now break works fine. You do have to write cube.
In c++17 this becomes
for( auto[i,j,k] : cube( {0,N}, {0,N}, {0,N} ) ) {
}
which is nice.
Now, in an application where you are supposed to be responsive, looping over a large 3 dimensional range at primiary control flow level is often a bad idea. You can thread it off, but even then you end up with problem that the thread runs too-long. And most 3 dimensional large iterations I've played with can benefit from using sub-task threading themselves.
To that end, you'll end up wanting to categorize your operation based on what kind of data it accesses, then pass your operation to something that schedules the iteration for you.
auto work = do_per_voxel( volume,
[&]( auto&& voxel ) {
// do work on the voxel
if (condition)
return Worker::abort;
else
return Worker::success;
}
);
then the control flow involved goes into the do_per_voxel function.
do_per_voxel isn't going to be a simple naked loop, but rather a system to rewrite the per-voxel tasks into per-scanline tasks (or even per-plane tasks depending on how large the planes/scanlines are at runtime (!)) then dispatch them in turn to a thread pool managed task scheduler, stitch up the resulting task handles, and return a future-like work that can be awaited on or used as a continuation trigger for when the work is done.
And sometimes you just use goto. Or you manually break out functions for subloops. Or you use flags to break out of deep recursion. Or you put the entire 3 layer loop in its own function. Or you compose the looping operators using a monad library. Or you can throw an exception (!) and catch it.
The answer to almost every question in c++ is "it depends". The scope of problem and the number of techniques you have available is large, and the details of the problem change the details of the solution.
Alternative - 1
You can do something like follows:
Set a bool variable in the beginning isOkay = true
All of your forloop conditions, add an extra condition isOkay == true
When your your custom condition is satisfied/ fails, set isOkay = false.
This will make your loops stop. An extra bool variable would be sometimes handy though.
bool isOkay = true;
for (int i = 0; isOkay && i < N; ++i)
{
for (int j = 0; isOkay && j < N; j++)
{
for (int k = 0; isOkay && k < N; ++k)
{
// some code
if (/*your condition*/)
isOkay = false;
}
}
}
Alternative - 2
Secondly. if the above loop iterations are in a function, best choice is to return result, when ever the custom condition is satisfied.
bool loop_fun(/* pass the array and other arguments */)
{
for (int i = 0; i < N ; ++i)
{
for (int j = 0; j < N ; j++)
{
for (int k = 0; k < N ; ++k)
{
// some code
if (/* your condition*/)
return false;
}
}
}
return true;
}
Break your for loops out into functions.
It makes things significantly easier to understand because now you can see what each loop is actually doing.
bool doHerpDerp() {
for (i = 0; i < N; ++i)
{
if (!doDerp())
return false;
}
return true;
}
bool doDerp() {
for (int i=0; i<X; ++i) {
if (!doHerp())
return false;
}
return true;
}
bool doHerp() {
if (shouldSkip)
return false;
return true;
}
Is there any other that is considered a good practice? Am I wrong when
I say it is considered a bad practice to use goto?
goto can be misused and overused, but I dont see any of the two in your example. Breaking out of a deeply nested loop is most clearly expressed by a simple goto label_out_of_the_loop;.
It is bad practice to use many gotos that jump to different labels, but in such cases it isnt the keyword goto itself that makes your code bad. It is the fact that you are jumping around in the code making it hard to follow that makes it bad. If however, you need a single jump out of nested loops then why not use the tool that was made for exactly that purpose.
To use a made up out of thin air analogy: Imagine you live in a world where in the past it was hip to hammer nails into walls. In recent times it became more fashinable to drill screws into walls using screwdrivers and hammers are completely out of fashion. Now consider you have to (despite being a bit old-fashinoned) get a nail into a wall. You should not refrain from using a hammer to do that, but maybe you should rather ask yourself if you really need a nail in the wall instead of a screw.
(Just in case it isnt clear: The hammer is goto and the nail in the wall is a jump out of a nested loop while the screw in the wall would be using functions to avoid the deep nesting alltogether ;)
One possible way is to assign a boolean value to a variable that represents the state. This state can later be tested using an "IF" conditional statement for other purposes later on in the code.
as far as your comment on efficiency compiling the both options in release mode on visual studio 2017 produces the exact same assembly.
for (int i = 0; i < 5; ++i)
{
for (int j = 0; j < 5; ++j)
{
for (int k = 0; k < 5; ++k)
{
if (i == 1 && j == 2 && k == 3) {
goto end;
}
}
}
}
end:;
and with a flag.
bool done = false;
for (int i = 0; i < 5; ++i)
{
for (int j = 0; j < 5; ++j)
{
for (int k = 0; k < 5; ++k)
{
if (i == 1 && j == 2 && k == 3) {
done = true;
break;
}
}
if (done) break;
}
if (done) break;
}
both produce..
xor edx,edx
xor ecx,ecx
xor eax,eax
cmp edx,1
jne main+15h (0C11015h)
cmp ecx,2
jne main+15h (0C11015h)
cmp eax,3
je main+27h (0C11027h)
inc eax
cmp eax,5
jl main+6h (0C11006h)
inc ecx
cmp ecx,5
jl main+4h (0C11004h)
inc edx
cmp edx,5
jl main+2h (0C11002h)
so there is no gain. Another option if your using a modern c++ compiler is to wrap it in a lambda.
[](){
for (int i = 0; i < 5; ++i)
{
for (int j = 0; j < 5; ++j)
{
for (int k = 0; k < 5; ++k)
{
if (i == 1 && j == 2 && k == 3) {
return;
}
}
}
}
}();
again this produces the exact same assembly. Personally I think using goto in your example is perfectly acceptable. It is clear what is happening to anyone else, and makes for more concise code. Arguably the lambda is equally as concise.
Specific
IMO, in this specific example, I think it is important to notice a common functionality between your loops. (Now I know that your example isn't necessarily literal here, but just bear with me for a sec) as each loop iterates N times, you can restructure your code like the following:
Example
int max_iterations = N * N * N;
for (int i = 0; i < max_iterations; i++)
{
/* do stuff, like the following for example */
*(some_ptr + i) = 0; // as opposed to *(some_3D_ptr + i*X + j*Y + Z) = 0;
// some_arr[i] = 0; // as oppose to some_3D_arr[i][j][k] = 0;
}
Now, it is important to remember that all loops, while for or otherwise, are really just syntatic sugar for the if-goto paradigm. I agree with the others that you ought to have a function return the result, however I wanted to show an example like the above in which that may not be the case. Granted, I'd flag the above in a code review but if you replaced the above with a goto I'd consider that a step in the wrong direction. (NOTE -- Make sure that you can reliably fit it into your desired datatype)
General
Now, as a general answer, the exit conditions for your loop may not be the same everytime (like the post in question). As a general rule, pull as many unneeded operations out of your loops (multiplications, etc.) as far out as you can as, while compilers are getting smarter everyday, there is no replacement for writing efficient and readable code.
Example
/* matrix_length: int of m*n (row-major order) */
int num_squared = num * num;
for (int i = 0; i < matrix_length; i++)
{
some_matrix[i] *= num_squared; // some_matrix is a pointer to an array of ints of size matrix_length
}
rather than writing *= num * num, we no longer have to rely on the compiler to optimize this out for us (though any good compiler should). So any doubly or triply nested loops which perform the above functionality would also benefit not only your code, but IMO writing clean and efficient code on your part. In the first example, we could have instead had *(some_3D_ptr + i*X + j*Y + Z) = 0;! Do we trust the compiler to optimize out i*X and j*Y, so that they aren't computed every iteration?
bool check_threshold(int *some_matrix, int max_value)
{
for (int i = 0; i < rows; i++)
{
int i_row = i*cols; // no longer computed inside j loop unnecessarily.
for (int j = 0; j < cols; j++)
{
if (some_matrix[i_row + j] > max_value) return true;
}
}
return false;
}
Yuck! Why aren't we using classes provided by the STL or a library like Boost? (we must be doing some low level/high performant code here). I couldn't even write a 3D version, due to the complexity. Even though we have hand optimized something, it may even be better to use #pragma unroll or similar preprocessor hints if your compiler allows.
Conclusion
Generally, the higher the abstraction level you can use, the better, however if say aliasing a 1-Dimensional row-major order matrix of integers to a 2-Dimensional array makes your code-flow harder to understand/extend, is it worth it? Likewise, that also may be an indicator to make something into its own function. I hope that, given these examples, you can see that different paradigms are called for in different places, and its your job as the programmer to figure that out. Don't go crazy with the above, but make sure you know what they mean, how to use them, and when they are called for, and most importantly, make sure the other people using your codebase know what they are as well and have no qualms about it. Good luck!
bool meetCondition = false;
for (i = 0; i < N && !meetCondition; ++i)
{
for (j = 0; j < N && !meetCondition; j++)
{
for (k = 0; k < N && !meetCondition; ++k)
{
...
if (condition)
meetCondition = true;
...
}
}
}
There are already several excellent answers that tell you how you can refactor your code, so I won’t repeat them. There isn’t a need to code that way for efficiency any more; the question is whether it’s inelegant. (Okay, one refinement I’ll suggest: if your helper functions are only ever intended to be used inside the body of that one function, you might help the optimizer out by declaring them static, so it knows for certain that the function does not have external linkage and will never be called from any other module, and the hint inline can’t hurt. However, previous answers say that, when you use a lambda, modern compilers don’t need any such hints.)
I’m going to challenge the framing of the question a bit. You’re correct that most programmers have a taboo against using goto. This has, in my opinion, lost sight of the original purpose. When Edsger Dijkstra wrote, “Go To Statement Considered Harmful,” there was a specific reason he thought so: the “unbridled” use of go to makes it too hard to reason formally about the current program state, and what conditions must currently be true, compared to control flow from recursive function calls (which he preferred) or iterative loops (which he accepted). He concluded:
The go to statement as it stands is just too primitive; it is too much an invitation to make a mess of one's program. One can regard and appreciate the clauses considered as bridling its use. I do not claim that the clauses mentioned are exhaustive in the sense that they will satisfy all needs, but whatever clauses are suggested (e.g. abortion clauses) they should satisfy the requirement that a programmer independent coordinate system can be maintained to describe the process in a helpful and manageable way.
Many C-like programming languages, for example Rust and Java, do have an additional “clause considered as bridling its use,” the break to a label. An even more restricted syntax might be something like break 2 continue; to break out of two levels of the nested loop and resume at the top of the loop containing them. This presents no more of a problem than a C-style break to what Dijkstra wanted to do: defining a concise description of the program state that programmers can keep track of in their heads or a static analyzer would find tractable.
Restricting goto to constructions like this makes it simply a renamed break to a label. The remaining problem with it is that the compiler and the programmer don’t necessarily know you’re only going to use it this way.
If there’s an important post-condition that holds after the loop, and your concern with goto is the same as Dijkstra’s, you might consider stating it in a short comment, something like // We have done foo to every element, or encountered condition and stopped. That would alleviate the problem for humans, and a static analyzer should do fine.
The best solution is to put the loops in a function and then return from that function.
This is essentially the same thing as your goto example, but with the massive benefit that you avoid having yet another goto debate.
Simplified pseudo code:
bool function (void)
{
bool result = something;
for (i = 0; i < N; ++i)
for (j = 0; j < N; j++)
for (k = 0; k < N; ++k)
if (condition)
return something_else;
...
return result;
}
Another benefit here is that you can upgrade from bool to an enum if you come across more than 2 scenarios. You can't really do that with goto in a readable way. The moment you start to use multiple gotos and multiple labels, is the moment you embrace spaghetti coding. Yes, even if you just branch downwards - it will not be pretty to read and maintain.
Notably, if you have 3 nested for loops, that may be an indication that you should try to split your code up in several functions and then this whole discussion might not even be relevant.
bool linear_search(const string A[], int n, string colour, int &count)
{
for (int i = 0; i < n; i++);
{
if (colour == A[i])
{
return true;
}
}
return false;
}
Compiling the above code results in the error 'i' was not declared in this scope for the if statement if (colour == A[i]).
This is really similar to many other for loops I have written, and I don't understand why it is not declared in the scope. Wasn't it declared in the previous line? How do I fix this?
You have a semi colon after your for loop declaration, remove it and you will be fine.
As others have pointed out, the problem is an extra semicolon that prevents your intended loop body from actually being part of the loop. But I want to provide more information on how to catch and avoid this kind of error.
First of all, when I compile the code with the formatting you show, my compiler produces a warning:
main.cpp:130:32: warning: for loop has empty body [-Wempty-body]
for (int i = 0; i < n; i++);
^
You should check to see if you're already getting this or some similar warning, and if so you should make sure to pay attention to warnings in the future. If you're not getting this warning, see if you can increase your compiler's warning level in some way to cause it to produce a warning like this. Enabling and paying attention to compiler warnings can save you a lot of trouble.
Next, I notice that your code is poorly formatted. Poor formatting can hide this sort of error. When I auto-format the code it becomes:
bool linear_search(const string A[], int n, string colour, int &count) {
for (int i = 0; i < n; i++)
;
{
if (colour == A[i]) {
return true;
}
}
return false;
}
This formatting makes the extraneous semicolon much more obvious. (It also suppresses my compiler's warning about the empty body, since the compiler assumes that if you put the empty body on a separate line then you really mean for it to be empty.) Using automatic formatting avoids the problems of inconsistent formatting and ensures that the formatting is consistent with the actual meaning of the code. See if your editor provides formatting support or see if you can integrate an external formatter like clang-format.
Are you sure you need ; in this line? for (int i = 0; i < n; i++);
you ended for loops block by adding a ; after for loop
for (int i = 0; i < n; i++);
remove this semicolon.
I had a similar problem but there was an "if" statement before my variable declaration in front of a "for" loop, the error was the same. Just in case that somebody googled it and didn't mention something like that:
if (someVar!=1) // an "if" statement that reduces the scope of "var"
//some comment line
//some other comment line
double var = 0.0;
for (size_t i = 0; i < length; i++) {
var *= 0.5; // Error appeared here
}
I'm failing to understand why would the loop exit at the value of character variable i = '\x1'
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
int main()
{
char i;
for (i = 1; i < 10, i++;)
{
cout << i << endl;
}
return 0;
}
Can somebody please explain this behavior ?
This is wrong
for (i = 1; i < 10, i++;)
/* ^ should be ; */
You only declared 3 regions for the loop, but put your increment statement in the middle area, and left your increment area empty. I have no idea which statement in the middle area your compiler will choose to execute. Best not to try to be cute and deceive your compiler. Let alone some colleague who will read your code years from now and go WTF???
A for loop has 3 distinct areas delimited by semi-colons:
The initialization area. You can declare as many variables in here as you want. These can be delimited by commas.
The test area. This is where an expression goes to test if the loop should continue.
The post loop area. This region of code gets executed after every loop.
Try to keep it simple. If it is going to be more complicated then use a while loop.
The reason that i ends up being 1 is that when i++ is zero, which terminates the loop, then i will become 1 (That is what the form of the ++ operator you used does). As the other answered have pointed out, once you fix your code by moving i++ out of the condition by replacing the comma with a semicolon, then i will make it all the way to 10 as desired.
for (i = 1; i < 10; i++)
You wrote for statement wrong.
Sorry for this very simple looking problem, but I have no idea what causes it:
In a C++ project I have a loop in a loop in a loop and have to leave the inner two so I have a variable for a query. In the first iteration it works fine, but in the second the assign from dtime to abbruch does not work. In the Debugger dtime has correctly the value "1" and abbruch "0" but this stays after the assignment. Both are of type long.
for (sect = 0; sect <= sections; sect++)
{
abbruch = 0;
for(line = 0; line < maxlines ; line ++)
{
abbruch = dtime[sect][0];
if(abbruch != 0)
{
break;
}
for (index = 0; index < 30; index ++)
{
if (complicated query)
{
dtime[sect][0] = DiffTime[maxlines * sect + line];
break;
}
}
}
}
I use VS2012 Ultimate.
Has anyone an idear how this can happen ot how to solve it?
Did you maybe mean to put this?
abbruch = dtime[sect][line];
(line instead of 0)
But also what Bathseba said is true. A break will only break one for-loop.
break will only take you out of the current for loop. In your case, the loop over index will not be called following a break when abbruch != 0 as that break will take you out of the loop over line. The other break statement will take you out of the loop over index.
That's the rationale, but, by far the best thing to do is to step through with a debugger. I wouldn't use break statements in this way as it's too confusing. Consider breaking the triple loop structure into function calls using return statements in place of breaks.
Also, it's a good idea to localise the interating variables in the for loops, e.g.
for (int sect = 0; sect <= sections; sect++)
Variable outside of the loop
int number = 0;
for(int i = 0; i < 10000; i++){
number = 3 * i;
printf("%d",number);
}
or Variable inside of the loop
for(int i = 0; i < 10000; i++){
int number = 3 * i;
printf("%d",number);
}
Which one is recommended and which one is better in performance?
Edit:
This is just an example to exhibit what I mean, All I wanna know is if defining a variable inside a loop and outside a loop means the same thing , or there's a difference.
Time to learn something early: any optimization you could make on something like this will be irrelevant in the face of printf.
Printf will be very, very slow. You could quintuple the math and get no measurable speed decrease. It's just the nature of printing to the terminal.
As for your edited question, there is no difference defining it in the loop or out. Imagine that
for (i = 0; i < 500; i++) {
int a = i * 3;
}
is just the same as
int forloop::a; // This doesn't work, the idea is to show it just changes the scope
for (i = 0; i < 500; i++) {
a = i * 3;
}
They will produce identical code, unless you start needing to use that variable outside of the loop it is defined in, because it is defined in the local scope of the loop. So...more like this:
int forloop::a; // Still not valid code, just trying to show an explanation
namespace forloop {
for (i = 0; i < 500; i++) {
a = i * 3;
}
} // namespace forloop
If this is unclear please let me know I'll go into more detail or explain differently.
Do not bother you with performance at first: make it safe before everything.
I would just quote Scott Meyers (Effective C++) for your concern:
"Postpone declarations as far as you can".
Thus, the second pattern is safer.
Example:
int j = 0;
for(int i = 0; i < 10000; i++){
j = 3 * i;
printf("%d",j);
}
...
// Use of j out of control!!!
int k = j * 5;
Now with the second pattern:
for(int i = 0; i < 10000; i++){
int j = 3 * i;
printf("%d",j);
}
...
// j not declared at this point.
// You get informed of the mistake at compile time, which is far much better.
int k = j * 5;
You do have a C++ tag, and you mention "declaring a string" in the question. Therefore there might be a performance difference (and yes, the printf could swamp it). Declaring a non-simple variable means calling a constructor, which might mean a non-trivial amount of work. In that case, declaring it inside of the loop could be hiding significant work in what appears to be an innocent declaration.
In general, the answer is that if you really care about performance - and treating the sample code as only an example of the difference between two places to declare a variable - then for non-simple variables, it is better to declare it outside the loop, unless the semantics require a fresh version of a temporary at each iteration.
There are likely many other places first to look at if performance is an issue, but one consideration is always moving loop invariants out of loops, especially if it is much easier for you to tell that it is invariant than for the compiler. And what looks like a declaration, can, in C++, fall into that category.
If, for (silly) example, you have
int k = 43;
for ( int i = 0; i < N; ++i )
{
int j = 17 + k; // k was previously defined outside the loop, but doesn't change in it
l = j * j; // l was also declared outside the loop
}
any good optimizing compiler can recognize that k is constant, and that j is always assigned 60, and l is assigned 3600 N times, and the loop can simply be removed and replaced with a single assignment to l. Here k and j are both loop invariants.
But a not-quite-so-good compiler might miss even one link in that chain, and wind up creating the loop.
It gets harder for the compiler to figure things out when you have
Foo k( 43 ); // a class that takes an int argument to its constructor
for( int i = 0; i < N; ++i )
{
Bar j( k ); // a Bar takes an int argument, adds 17 and stores it.
l = j.squared();
}
Same invariants. Not as easy to detect without looking inside the workings of bar; and if the constructor and squared method aren't inline, we've just made it slower.
In this case, printf("%d", i * 3) would be better than defining the variable at all.
To answer your question and not nitpicking:
The difference between the 2 variants is, that you are declaring your variable number in different "variable environments" - by which I mean that the scope changes. A variable environment is given by your curly braces { ... }. Everytime you open a new curly brace like this { ... { ... } ... }, you declare a new variable environment inside the old one, which means, that if you declare numbers like so:
{ ... { int numbers; ... } ... }
this variable will only be visible or existent in the innermost environment. So
{ ... { int numbers; ... } ... do_something(numbers); ... }
will give a compiler error.
And to your concerns about performance: Neither variant is better performing. Most, if not all compilers will give the same assembly.