while

n : a period of indeterminate length (usually short) marked by

some action or condition; "he was here for a little

while"; "I need to rest for a piece"; "a spell of good

weather" [syn: {piece}, {spell}]

while

The {loop} construct found in nearly all

{imperative} programming languages which executes one or more

instructions (the "loop body") repeatedly so long as some

condition evaluates to true. In contrast to a {repeat} loop,

the loop body will not be executed at all if the condition is

false on entry to the while.

For example, in {C}, a while loop is written

while () ;

where is any expression and is any

statement, including a compound statement within braces

"{..}".

(1995-03-14)