An infinite loop is when a computer program continues executing a command without end, usually due to a lack of end condition, an unreachable end condition, or a retry command. This can cause the computer to slow down or freeze, but modern operating systems can terminate the program. Infinite loops are not the goal of a program and are caused by programming errors.
An infinite loop is a condition that causes a computer program to continue executing a command without end. This is usually due to one of three causes: the program does not have an end condition, the program’s end condition is unreachable, or a retry command causes a program to continually restart. Most of the time, an infinite loop will cause your computer to slow down dramatically or even freeze. In early computers, these loops often required a restart, but modern operating systems often catch them and terminate the program before they get out of hand.
There are infinite loops within programming; other uses of the term are generally incorrect. In most cases, infinite loops are not the ultimate goal of the program, and somewhere in the code there is a problem causing the condition to occur. Each of the three main cases of an infinite loop is completely based on programming and software.
When a program does not have an end condition, it will continue executing the last set of statements without ending. In many cases, this will cause the program to hang waiting for some final instruction that will never arrive. Other times, the last instruction given to the program was to execute an instruction or process a command. In such cases, it will continue to do these things endlessly. This will cause the computer to slowly fill up with repeated commands from the endless loop until the whole system is working on an endless problem.
A similar situation exists when the end condition of a program is unreachable. In this case, the program can terminate, but it never will. The problem with the end point could be in the programming or it could be a computer error causing the condition. For example, if a program requests specific information from a specific location, a programming error would be that the information is stored in a different location. On the other hand, if the information is going to the program, but is interrupted due to user or other program interference, it may simply never arrive.
The ultimate cause of an infinite loop is completely programming based. Somewhere in the programming is a command that tells the program to repeat something. While these commands are common, conditions should never allow the repeated command to revert to its initial repetition. If this happens, the program will execute a command, hit the repeat statement, then execute the command again, then repeat again, and so on. These loops are more likely to be deliberately programmed, often as part of malware.
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