Why is it so 'hard' to write a for-loop in C++ with 2 loop variables?

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In C++ why can’t I write a for() loop like this: for( int i = 1, double i2 = 0; …

A C developer would write this:

int myIndex;
for (myIndex=0;myIndex<10;++myIndex) ...

A C++ developer would write this to prevent the loop variable from leaking outside the loop:

for (int myIndex=0;myIndex<10;++myIndex) ...

However, if you have 2 loop variables, you cannot do this anymore. The following doesn't compile:

for (int myIndex=0,MyElement *ptr=Pool->First;ptr;++myIndex,ptr=ptr->next) ...

The comma operator does not allow two variables to be defined this way, so we have to write it like this:

int myIndex;
MyElement *ptr;
for (myIndex=0,ptr=Pool->First;ptr;++myIndex,ptr=ptr->next) ...

Which defeats the advantage of having real loop-local variables.

A solution could be to put the whole construction between braces, like this:

{
int myIndex;
MyElement *ptr;
for (myIndex=0,ptr=Pool->First;ptr;++myIndex,ptr=ptr->next) ...
}

But this is hardly more elegant.

Isn't there a better way of doing this in C++ (or C++0x)?

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