CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javasyntaxfor-loop
fkianos15
fkianos15

Reputation: 39

Infinite loop application - for(;;)

I am trying to understand the concept behind the for loop example 

for (;;)
{
//write code
}

I understand what it does and how it's the same looping structure as while(true), but my question is...is this good programming practice and for what sort of applications would this type of looping structure be applied to?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 1487

Answers (5)

Michael Dillon
Michael Dillon

Reputation: 1037

This is just a matter of personal preference. For instance I much prefer this style:

 while (true) {
     // Do infinite task
 }

It all comes down to readability, go with whatever is easy for you to read and understand months later.

Upvotes: 0

waldyr.ar
waldyr.ar

Reputation: 15234

There are a few situations when this is desired behavior. For example, the games on cartridge-based game consoles typically have no exit condition in their main loop, as there is no operating system for the program to exit to; the loop runs until the console is powered off.

Another example is when a module listen actions from another. It will need to listen all the time, so the listener have to listen for infinite time or until the program turn off. Like Sockets, Threads and UIComponents.

There isn't bad practice on the concept of infinite loop, but if it isn't wanted or prejudice your system's feature it can be considered, like when you create an unintentional infinite loop or lose program control for the loop.

To make the infinite loop a good practice:

  1. Make sure that it is a desired behavior. If it has stop condition, avoid infinite loop!
  2. Make it explicity with for(;;) or while(true). Avoid tautologies in expression, do it simple!
  3. Make it fault tolerant, rescuing expected exceptions and give to them the right treatment!
  4. And the most important! Make a simple infinite loop!

Upvotes: 3

Vamsi Mohan Jayanti
Vamsi Mohan Jayanti

Reputation: 666

One perspective could be : While is more like event/condition based .. Where you run the loop until something happens which terminates the loop. On the other hand for loop is more like counter based where you want to specify for how many times should the loop happened. Al least it has an explicit provision for that.

Ofcourse technically both are same they both check for run condition to start a loop cycle.

Upvotes: 0

the8472
the8472

Reputation: 43072

while(abortRequested)
{
  // ....
}

is almost equivalent to

while(true)
{
   // ...

   // ... dozens of lines of code ...

   if(abortRequested)
     break;

   // prepare next iteration
}

Alternatively this might also run in a daemon thread which automatically gets terminated when all non-daemon threads are done. So the semantic of these constructs generally is:

Should keep running forever by default, unless some explicit termination event is received.

Upvotes: 1

user784540
user784540

Reputation:

In general it is ok, there's nothing to worry about. It is about of programmer's preferences.

I prefer while(true), from my point of view it is more elegant form of infinite loop. Someone else may prefer for(;;) approach.

Upvotes: 0

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