Okuzeka
Software Engineering vocabulary · Debugging and Troubleshooting

Infinite loop

Meaning in software engineering, with examples

nounCommon term

In software engineering, infinite loop means: A loop that never stops because its exit condition is never met, which can freeze a program or use 100% of the CPU.

In Turkish: sonsuz döngü

How it is used

Usually a bug, for example when a counter is never increased. People say 'it's stuck in an infinite loop' or 'it goes into an infinite loop'. Sometimes it is intentional, as in a server's main loop written with while (true).

Example sentences

  1. The page froze because the retry logic got stuck in an infinite loop.

  2. If the API keeps returning the same cursor, this code will turn into an infinite loop.

Common collocations

  • stuck in an infinite loop
  • cause an infinite loop
  • go into an infinite loop
  • break out of the loop
  • loopA piece of code that repeats the same steps several times, for example once for every item in a list or until a condition becomes false.
  • bugA mistake in a program that makes it behave in a way nobody intended, such as showing wrong results, freezing or closing suddenly.
  • debugTo search for the cause of a problem in a program and remove it, often by running the code step by step and checking values.
  • recursionA technique where a function solves a problem by calling itself on a smaller part of the same problem until it reaches a simple case.

More terms: Debugging and Troubleshooting

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