count is 13 count is 14 count is 15 count is 16 count is 17 . . . . count is 678 count is 679 count is 680 . . . . and so on without end
It is possible (and common) to accidentally create a counting loop that never ends.
In the above example, this happened because the variable decrement
had the value minus one.
So the statement
count = count - decrement;
actually added one to count.
So count kept getting larger and larger, never reaching the zero that the
condition part was looking for:
while ( count >= 0 ) // GREATER-than-or-equal operator
Such loops are called infinite loops, or non-terminating loops. It is easy to accidentally include them in a program. Here is another fragment:
int count = 20;
int dec = -1;
while ( count __________ 10 ) // what relational operator ?
{
System.out.println( "count is:" + count );
count = count + dec ;
}
System.out.println( "count was " + count + " when it failed the test");
What relational operator should be used so that the program fragment prints out the integers 20 down to and including 11 ?
< <= > >= == !=