Else clause on Python while statement

Question

I\'ve noticed the following code is legal in Python. My question is why? Is there a specific reason?

n = 5
while n != 0:
    print n
    n -= 1
else:
    pri         


        

Answer 1

I know this is old question but...

As Raymond Hettinger said, it should be called while/no_break instead of while/else.
I find it easy to understeand if you look at this snippet.

n = 5
while n > 0:
    print n
    n -= 1
    if n == 2:
        break
if n == 0:
    print n

Now instead of checking condition after while loop we can swap it with else and get rid of that check.

n = 5
while n > 0:
    print n
    n -= 1
    if n == 2:
        break
else:  # read it as "no_break"
    print n

I always read it as while/no_break to understand the code and that syntax makes much more sense to me.