Question

When you look at how infinite loops should be implemented, you mostly see this approach:

while :
do
  # loop infinitely
done

But I just don’t understand the use of : here. Wouldn’t it be better to use:

while true
do
  # loop infinitely
done

?

Answer 1

from manual:

: [arguments]
No effect; the command does nothing beyond expanding arguments and performing any specified
redirections. A zero exit code is returned.

As this returns always zero therefore is is similar to be used as true

Check out this answer: What Is the Purpose of the `:’ (colon) GNU Bash Builtin?