Why do I not have to define the variable in a for loop using range(), but I do have to in a while loop in Python?

Question

I have the following code using a for loop:

    total = 0
    for num in range(101):
       total = total + num
       print(total)

Now the

Answer 1

Well, for is a special statement that automatically defines the variable for you. It would be redundant to require you to declare the variable in advance.

while is a general purpose loop construct. The condition for a while statement doesn't even have to include a variable; for example

while True: 

or

while my_function() > 0: