Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
In computer programming, a loop counter is a control variable that controls the iterations of a loop (a computer programming language construct). It is so named because most uses of this construct result in the variable taking on a range of integer values in some orderly sequences (for example., starting at 0 and ending at 10 in increments of 1)
In most computer programming languages, a while loop is a control flow statement that allows code to be executed repeatedly based on a given Boolean condition. The while loop can be thought of as a repeating if statement .
In the C programming language, Duff's device is a way of manually implementing loop unrolling by interleaving two syntactic constructs of C: the do-while loop and a switch statement. Its discovery is credited to Tom Duff in November 1983, when Duff was working for Lucasfilm and used it to speed up a real-time animation program.
The form for (;;) for an infinite loop is traditional, appearing in the standard reference The C Programming Language, and is often punningly pronounced "forever". [11] This is a loop that will print "Infinite Loop" without halting. A similar example in 1980s-era BASIC:
Some languages may use a different naming convention for this type of loop. For example, the Pascal and Lua languages have a "repeat until" loop, which continues to run until the control expression is true and then terminates. In contrast a "while" loop runs while the control expression is true and terminates once the expression becomes false.
Loop-invariant code consists of statements or expressions that can be moved outside a loop body without affecting the program semantics. Such transformations, called loop-invariant code motion, are performed by some compilers to optimize programs. A loop-invariant code example (in the C programming language) is
In these examples, if N < 1 then the body of loop may execute once (with I having value 1) or not at all, depending on the programming language. In many programming languages, only integers can be reliably used in a count-controlled loop.
This is an accepted version of this page This is the latest accepted revision, reviewed on 17 February 2025. General-purpose programming language "C programming language" redirects here. For the book, see The C Programming Language. Not to be confused with C++ or C#. C Logotype used on the cover of the first edition of The C Programming Language Paradigm Multi-paradigm: imperative (procedural ...