Is "for(;;)" faster than "while (TRUE)"? If not, why do people use it?
- It's not faster.
- If you really care, compile with assembler output for your platform and look to see.
- It doesn't matter. This never matters. Write your infinite loops however you like.
I prefer for(;;) for two reasons.
One is that some compilers produce warnings on while(true) (something like "loop condition is constant"). Avoiding warnings is always a good thing to do.
Another is that I think for(;;) is clearer and more telling.I want an infinite loop. It literally has no condition, it depends on nothing. I just want it to continue forever, until I do something to break out of it.
Whereas with while(true), well, what's true got to do with anything? I'm not interested in looping until true becomes false, which is what this form literally says (loop while true is true). I just want to loop.
And no, there is absolutely no performance difference.
Personally I use for (;;) because there aren't any numbers in it, it's just a keyword. I prefer it to while (true), while (1), while (42), while (!0) etc etc.