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The infamous "if loop" actually exists (discuss.tchncs.de)

submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 months ago (2 children)

ELI5 plz

[–] [email protected] 46 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Statements that start with # in C/C++ are known as preprocessor directives, that is, they are executed before compilation begins. OP has used a #define which will replace any instance of A (IF(x)) with B (while (x)) in the code.

So the IF statement is really just a while statement.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 months ago (3 children)

But what is it in reference to? What's the "infamous if loop"?

[–] [email protected] 51 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Ah, I believe that would be this image from a college course.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago

I always wondered why I always had a hard time making developers not call "if" a "loop".
Turns out it was on their tests.

Glad I didn't read my college material, or I would have lost faith in my college professors.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

It just occurred to that in Yorkshire dialect a while loop would actually be an until loop. Directives to the rescue!

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago

"Infamous" just refers to newbies who sometimes call if statements "if loops". I've heard this quite a bit.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

They used a macro to make 'IF' (which is distinctly not 'if') map to 'while'. So it's really a while(1) loop, which will repeat forever, or until the program is terminated, whichever comes first.

Someone's just being silly.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Thx!

'IF' (which is distinctly not 'if')

Is this something needed "for the meme" or something with this macro or C/C++? Or why the case-sensitivity here? I only know languages like Java, Python, JS. Unfortunately the ancient tongue is not known to me.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

It's not really that important to the joke, since I'm pretty sure you can also replace keywords like 'if' with the preprocessor. It's just that preprocessor macros are typically (style, not syntax) ALL_CAPS_WITH_UNDERSCORES.

It's just another clue that that block isn't actually an if-block, since C is case sensitive and 'IF' wouldn't actually work.