Incremental Java
Looping Variables

What's a Looping Variable?

In the following code: 
int count = 0 ;
while ( count < num )
{
   System.out.println( count ) ;
   count++ 
}
count is the looping variable. It controls how many iterations a loop goes through.

As far as the compiler is concerned, count is just an int variable. As far as we, the readers of this code snippet are concerned, count is a looping variable. It describes the purpose of the variable.