Our website uses cookies to enhance your browsing experience.
Accept
to the top
close form

Fill out the form in 2 simple steps below:

Your contact information:

Step 1
Congratulations! This is your promo code!

Desired license type:

Step 2
Team license
Enterprise license
** By clicking this button you agree to our Privacy Policy statement
close form
Request our prices
New License
License Renewal
--Select currency--
USD
EUR
* By clicking this button you agree to our Privacy Policy statement

close form
Free PVS‑Studio license for Microsoft MVP specialists
* By clicking this button you agree to our Privacy Policy statement

close form
To get the licence for your open-source project, please fill out this form
* By clicking this button you agree to our Privacy Policy statement

close form
I am interested to try it on the platforms:
* By clicking this button you agree to our Privacy Policy statement

close form
check circle
Message submitted.

Your message has been sent. We will email you at


If you do not see the email in your inbox, please check if it is filtered to one of the following folders:

  • Promotion
  • Updates
  • Spam

Webinar: C++ semantics - 06.11

>
>
>
V3120. Potentially infinite loop. The v…
menu mobile close menu
Analyzer diagnostics
General Analysis (C++)
General Analysis (C#)
General Analysis (Java)
Micro-Optimizations (C++)
Diagnosis of 64-bit errors (Viva64, C++)
Customer specific requests (C++)
MISRA errors
AUTOSAR errors
OWASP errors (C#)
Problems related to code analyzer
Additional information
toggle menu Contents

V3120. Potentially infinite loop. The variable from the loop exit condition does not change its value between iterations.

Nov 14 2016

The analyzer detected a potentially infinite loop with its exit condition depending on a variable whose value never changes between iterations.

Consider the following example:

int x = 0;
while (x < 10)
{
  Do(x);
}

The loop's exit condition depends on variable 'x' whose value will always be zero, so the 'x < 10' check will always evaluate to "true", causing an infinite loop. A correct version of this code could look like this:

int x = 0;
while (x < 10)
{
  x = Do(x);
}

Here is another example where the loop exit condition depends on a variable whose value, in its turn, changes depending on other variables that never change inside the loop. Suppose we have the following method:

int Foo(int a)
{
  int j = 0;
  while (true)
  {
    if (a >= 32)
    {
      return j * a;
    }

    if (j == 10)
    {
      j = 0;
    }
    j++;
  }
}

The loop's exit condition depends on the 'a' parameter. If 'a' does not pass the 'a >= 32' check, the loop will become infinite, as the value of 'a' does not change between iterations. This is one of the ways to fix this code:

int Foo(int a)
{
  int j = 0;
  while (true)
  {
    if (a >= 32)
    {
      return j * a;
    }

    if (j == 10)
    {
      j = 0;
      a++; // <=
    }
    j++;
  }
}

In the fixed version, the local variable 'j' controls how the 'a' parameter's value changes.

This diagnostic is classified as: