A loop with at most one iteration is equivalent to the use of an if
statement to conditionally execute one piece of code. No developer
expects to find such a use of a loop statement. If the initial intention of the author was really to conditionally execute one piece of code, an
if
statement should be used instead.
At worst that was not the initial intention of the author and so the body of the loop should be fixed to use the nested return
,
break
or throw
statements in a more appropriate way.
Noncompliant code example
for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) { // noncompliant, loop only executes once
printf("i is %d", i);
break;
}
...
for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) { // noncompliant, loop only executes once
if (i == x) {
break;
} else {
printf("i is %d", i);
return;
}
}
Compliant solution
for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
printf("i is %d", i);
}
...
for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
if (i == x) {
break;
} else {
printf("i is %d", i);
}
}