Question

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is while(true) bad programming practice?
What's the point of using “while (true) {…}”?

I’ve always considered it bad practice to use while(true). Many people think it’s okay.

Why would you want to purposefully create an infinite loop? The only two reasons I can think of are:

1. You’re being devious
2. You’re being lazy

When, if ever, is it appropriate to use this? And why would you use this over an algorithm?

Answer 1

Sometimes, while(true) is more readable than the alternatives. Case in point:

BufferedReader in = ...;
while (true)
{
  String line = in.readLine();
  if (line == null)
    break;
  process(line);
}

Consider the alternative:

BufferedReader in = ...;
String line;
while ((line = in.readLine) != null)
  process(line);