Using uint as a loop iterator

21st November 2007

It took me some time to track down this bug in some code recently. I post it here to help others avoid the error. It’s obvious once you see it. When does this loop stop?

for( var i:uint = 5; i >= 0; i-- )
{
    // do something here
}

The answer, of course, is never. The loop continues indefinitely because a uint can never be less than 0. Doh!

Tags: Actionscript, Learning