Is there a Break[] equivalent for short-circuiting in Table?

Question

I am running Mathematica 7. The following is admittedly a silly example, but suppose that I have a list list whose entries are either True or False. Suppose that I have some function truthFun[] which evaluates randomly to either True or False. I would like to call truthFun[] and print False until truthFun[] evaluates to True for the first time.

One way to do this is using a For loop. We can exit the loop "early" using Break[]. (As the documentation states, Break[] exits the nearest enclosing Do, For, or While loop.) For example, the following works:

truthFun[] := RandomChoice[{True, False}]

For[i = 1, i <= 10^8, i++,
   If[truthFun[] === False, Print[False], Break[]]];
Print["Finished"]

False

False

Finished

However, it is often recommended that Mathematica users avoid using loops (which are relatively slow in Mathematica, I think). Is it possible to accomplish the above using Table, which is probably faster?

I tried the following, but unfortunately it appears that Break[] does not work with Table:

truthFun[] := RandomChoice[{True, False}]

Table[If[truthFun[] === False, Print[False], Break[]], {i, 1, 10^8}];

False

False

False

Hold[Break[]]

Also, Mathematica gives me this error message:

Break::nofwd: No enclosing For, While, or Do found for Break[].

Is there an analogue to Break in Table? Thanks for your time.

Answer 1

The lightly-documented second argument of Return works:

Table[
 If[i < 3, Print@i, Return["Exit", Table]],
 {i, 100}
]

1

2

"Exit"

Other examples of use: (1), (2)

Additional information:
What can I use as the second argument to Return in my own functions?

---

Break also accepts a second argument but at least on my system the syntax highlighting is ugly:

Table[
 If[i < 3, Print@i, Break[Null, Table]],
 {i, 100}
]

1

2

---

Somewhat more standard but IMHO less convenient is Throw and Catch:

Table[
 If[i < 3, Print@i, Throw["Exit", "tableBreak"]],
 {i, 100}
] ~Catch~ "tableBreak"

Answer 2

Clarification: this answer refers to the first the first version of the question, before its entire premise was changed.

So what you're trying to do is take an existing list and then go through its elements until a stopping criterion is reached. But since you already have the list

list={False,False,False,True,False,False};

it's not necessary to construct another Table, just as it's not necessary to use For and Do. Instead, use a function that can select the desired elements of your list according to a criterion you specify. In your case a simple approach is to use Split because it creates lists of "runs" (i.e., contiguous stretches in your input), based on a criterion that specifies what makes the elements of a run equivalent.

Your simple example doesn't even need any test argument for the criterion:

First@Split@list

{False, False, False}

The run stops when the first element is reached that's just different from the others.

Then you want to Print the results (actually, I think the above list is what you'd usually be looking for). If that's required, then you can do it now, after having collected the elements above:

Map[Print, %] 

False

False

False

Edit

In response to the edited question, one could first identify the position of the first element that satisfies the truthFunction, and then extract the part of the list up to that position:

truthFunction[x_] := TrueQ[x]
Most[
 list[[1 ;; First@First[Position[list, _?truthFunction, 1, 1]]
   ]
  ]]

(* ==> {False, False, False} *)

Here I decided to use Position with the fourth argument that says to look for the first occurrence. Since Position requires a search pattern, the truthFunction has to be preceded by _? or PatternTest.