territorywhile

Territorywhile is a hypothetical control construct and modeling concept that blends territorial scope with iterative processing. It originated in discussions of distributed simulations and agent-based modeling as a way to describe loops that respect territorial boundaries.

The term merges territory and while to describe a loop that iterates within a defined territory while a guard condition holds. The territory defines a collection of units, resources, or agents and may be geographic or logical.

A territorywhile loop begins with an initial territory state. In each iteration, one or more units within the territory are selected and processed; after processing, the territory state may be updated. The loop continues as long as there remains at least one unprocessed unit in the territory and the guard condition is true. Termination occurs when no unprocessed units remain or the guard fails.

Applications for territorywhile appear in simulations of ecological systems, urban planning, or resource allocation where processes must respect bounded territories and dynamic conditions. It can model staged deployment within a region, or iterative exploration of a map until complete.

Variants and related concepts include connections to standard while loops in programming, territorial modeling in geography, and agent-based modeling. Variants may include multi-territory loops, asynchronous processing, or parallel territory processing.

See also: territory-based modeling, agent-based modeling, loop constructs.