Question

I’m using a somewhat unconventional for loop that works well for what I’m doing as paraphrased below (not bothering to show variable declarations):

if (arr && arr.length > 0) {
    for (i = arr.length; i--; i) {
        element = arr.pop();
        //rest of code
    }
}

Closure compiler is giving me a warning of: “WARNING – Suspicious code. This code lacks side effects, is there a bug?” Pointing specifically to the last “i” in the for loop parens.

If I remove the i, jslint throws a warning, if I leave it, closure throws a warning. There are three of these loops in total, is there a “closure friendly” way to do this?

Answer 1

How ’bout the normal way?

if (arr && arr.length > 0) {
    for (i = arr.length; i > 0; --i) {
        element = arr.pop();
        //rest of code
    }
}

Putting the decrement in the test is just not the normal way to write a for loop.

Or even more normal:

if (arr && arr.length > 0) {
    for (i = arr.length - 1; i >= 0; --i) {
        element = arr.pop();
        //rest of code
    }
}

…but as you’re not using i, it doesn’t matter much.

Or you could use a while:

if (arr && arr.length > 0) {
    i = arr.length;
    while (i--) {
        element = arr.pop();
        //rest of code
    }
}