question about for and while loop

A 'for' loop is counter controlled because the loop ends when a counter reaches its limit.
A 'while' loop end when a boolean condition is no longer met, which may be that a counter has exceeded a limit or something in the loop itself if checking the condition and allowing the loop to end.

Frequently, I write 'while' loops with a boolean variable; ex: while (bExit != TRUE)
Within the loop code, I may have various conditions that will allow bExit to be set to true.

Not only what Tim said, but (and my CPP is a little rusty) you can do something like this:

struct {
  int val1;
  int val2;
} myStruct;

myStruct[] myStructArray;

//Do stuff that initializes the structure

for (int *ptr = &myStructArray; ptr <= &myStructArray[lastElem]; ptr+=sizeof(myStruct))
{
   //Manipulate each item in the structure
}

May not be compilable, but you get the point. For loops don't necessarily use "counters", they use iterators. You can do some pretty strange stuff with while loops:

for (bool flag = false;flag;)
{
    //keep doing something until you flip flag
}

for (;;)
{
    //Infinite loop
}

Etc... The for loop is just an initialization, condition, and a statement that runs every time it loops (which is typically used for iteration or counting.

So writing out what a "for" loop means:

for (initial condition) until (condition is true) do (for body) then (increment variable)

Which in its compact form, becomes:

for (initial condition; exit condition; increment variable)
{
 method body
}

So its not called "counter controlled loop" because its not necessarily controlled by a counter, Its still a condition check (strangely enough, compilers turn For loops into while loops, so you can do the same with while loops as for loops and vice versa).