Quotient in LOOP program [closed]

Question

I want to construct a LOOP-computable program for the integer division (quotient):

x = a DIV b

The LOOP specification can be seen here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LOOP_(programming_language)

I don't know how to do this without a while.

Answer 1

The idea is to implement the following algorithm:

result = 0
while a >= 0:
  a = a - b
  result = result + 1
end while
return result - 1

As you mention, there is no while. However, since we have an a priori upper bound on the number of rounds, we can simulate the while as follows:

result = 0
repeat a + 1 times:
  if a >= 0:
    a = a - b
    result = result + 1
  end if
end repeat
return result - 1

It remains to implement the conditional and subtraction. In fact, you can't really implement the conditional, since all numbers are automatically non-negative. However, this is easy to fix by replacing the condition a >= 0 with the condition a > 0. I'll let you work out the minor changes required to implement this change.

Answer 2

Look for the unique integer $x$ such that $b x \le a$ and $b(x+1) > a$. With this approach, you don't need a WHILE statement.