Infinite Loops
One must use caution when using while loops because of the possibility that this condition never resolves to a false value. In such cases, we would have a loop that never ends on our hands. These “infinite” loops are not necessarily bad things… many communications “servers” that are part of client-server systems work exactly in that fashion. It all depends on whether or not the loop was meant to run forever, and if not, whether the loop has the possibility of terminating; in other words, will the expression ever be able to evaluate to false?
Example
while 1:
handle, indata = wait_for_client_connect()
outdata = process_request(indata)
ack_result_to_client(handle, outdata)
For example, the piece of code above was set deliberately to never end because the value 1 will never evaluate to Boolean false. The main point of this server code is to sit and wait for clients to connect, presumably over a network link. These clients send requests which the server understands and processes. After the request has been serviced, a return value or data is returned to the client who may either drop the connection altogether or send another request. As far as the server is concerned, it has performed its duty to this one client and returns to the top of the loop to wait for the next client to come along.
