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Comment by Wildgoose | Hacker News Reader

What is wrong with simply:

  test := True;
  WHILE test
  DO
     <body>;
     test = <condition>
  OD

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That introduces a variable that has to be initialised outside the control block. It's not terrible as hacks go, but I guess the readability cost of the additional variable is higher than having the body in the condition.

Agreed, but it also allows for a more sophisticated <condition> testing to take place within the body of the loop.

standard practice "Sentinel value" when I was a student

Nothing is wrong with it, but your suggestion comes 40 years too late. The popular idiom was the one I mentioned.

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