while true vs. for i= 1:Inf

So I was recently posed with the question, what is the difference between a while true loop and a for i = 1:Inf loop. I have done quite a bit of research, but I cannot seem to come up with an answer. Do you know?

Answer 1

[per isakson]

The for-loop provide the loop-variable, ii. Why, is that interesting?

Answer 2

[James Tursa]

In addition to what Per Isakson has written, I would add that the loop variable, after a certain point, will lose precision and become ill-defined. I think MATLAB will try to gracefully provide a value for ii, but after a point the successive ii's will be equal to each other until the background rounding scheme clocks it over into the next representable value. (As I recall, there was a previous similar thread some time ago that explored this topic)

[Matt Fig]

Warning: Warning: FOR loop index is too large. Truncating to 281474976710655

[bym]

There is also a MISRA-C rule regarding a while true vs a for loop in C, but I do not know if that extends to Matlab

Answer 3

[Azzi Abdelmalek]

 k=0; 
while rand<0.8
  k=k+1;
end

The while loop will run until a condition rand < 0.8 is false, we don't know when it occurs, because rand is a random number. In this case we can't use a for loop

[michal.markun]

Why not? Even if slightly longer code...

for k=1:Inf,
    if rand>=0.8,
        break,
    end;
end;

[Walter Roberson]

Because it might take more than 281474976710655 iterations which is the limit for 1:inf loops.