Path: csiph.com!x330-a1.tempe.blueboxinc.net!usenet.pasdenom.info!gegeweb.org!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: James Kuyper <jameskuyper@verizon.net>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: the loop control
Date: Thu, 03 Nov 2011 18:00:13 -0400
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
Lines: 22
Message-ID: <4EB30EED.6020102@verizon.net>
References: <j8hrok$3cq$1@reader1.panix.com> <op.v35g1ubrlahckh@cantereyd> <j8miq2$kh4$1@reader1.panix.com> <20111031152454.835@kylheku.com> <j8v134$3ug$1@reader1.panix.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Injection-Info: mx04.eternal-september.org; posting-host="2P71cupDoazVVolqpw1jrw"; logging-data="30730"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org";	posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1/nv2bhnsH6y9VM/1U1yhBuWxadgGZSU5I="
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.2.23) Gecko/20110920 Thunderbird/3.1.15
In-Reply-To: <j8v134$3ug$1@reader1.panix.com>
Cancel-Lock: sha1:PK6/0Y4jtn5yBF1xu0ZX/MCGWCc=
Xref: x330-a1.tempe.blueboxinc.net comp.lang.c:12632

On 11/03/2011 05:29 PM, Joe keane wrote:
> I use it all the time.
> 
> The idiom
> 
>     while (--ct >= 0)
> 	...
> 
> has the nice property that if ct is negative coming in [almost], the
> body is not executed, which is probably what you want.

A property it shares with
	while(ct-- > 0)

which, in addition to the minor advantage of being one character
shorter, also works as intended even if ct is unsigned.

...
> If you need unsigned for a loop counter, there must be some reason for
> doing so.

That is correct.