Why is this loop changed?

Question

In this situation changing while() to for() is not an optimization. There is simply no way to know from bytecode which one was used in a source code.

There are many situations when:

while(x)

is the same as:

for(;x;)

Suppose we have a three similar java applications – one with while() statement, and two with corresponting for(). First for() with stopping criterion only like in the standard while(), and second for() also with iterator declaration and incrementation.

APPLICATION #1 – SOURCE

public class While{
    public static void main(String args[]) {
        int i = 0;
        while(i<5){
            System.out.println(i);
            i++;
        }
    }
}

APPLICATION #2 – SOURCE

public class For{
    public static void main(String args[]) {
        int i = 0;
        for(; i<5 ;){
            System.out.println(i);
            i++;
        }
    }
}

APPLICATION #3 – SOURCE

public class For2{
    public static void main(String args[]) {
        for(int i=0;i<5;i++){
            System.out.println(i);
        }
    }
}

If we compile all of them we have got:

APPLICATION #1 – BYTECODE

public class While {
  public While();
    Code:
       0: aload_0
       1: invokespecial #1                  // Method java/lang/Object."<init>":()V
       4: return

  public static void main(java.lang.String[]);
    Code:
       0: iconst_0
       1: istore_1
       2: iload_1
       3: iconst_5
       4: if_icmpge     20
       7: getstatic     #2                  // Field java/lang/System.out:Ljava/io/PrintStream;
      10: iload_1
      11: invokevirtual #3                  // Method java/io/PrintStream.println:(I)V
      14: iinc          1, 1
      17: goto          2
      20: return
}

APPLICATION #2 – BYTECODE

public class For {
  public For();
    Code:
       0: aload_0
       1: invokespecial #1                  // Method java/lang/Object."<init>":()V
       4: return

  public static void main(java.lang.String[]);
    Code:
       0: iconst_0
       1: istore_1
       2: iload_1
       3: iconst_5
       4: if_icmpge     20
       7: getstatic     #2                  // Field java/lang/System.out:Ljava/io/PrintStream;
      10: iload_1
      11: invokevirtual #3                  // Method java/io/PrintStream.println:(I)V
      14: iinc          1, 1
      17: goto          2
      20: return
}

APPLICATION #3 – BYTECODE

public class For2 extends java.lang.Object{
public For2();
  Code:
   0:   aload_0
   1:   invokespecial   #1; //Method java/lang/Object."<init>":()V
   4:   return

public static void main(java.lang.String[]);
  Code:
   0:   iconst_0
   1:   istore_1
   2:   iload_1
   3:   iconst_5
   4:   if_icmpge       20
   7:   getstatic       #2; //Field java/lang/System.out:Ljava/io/PrintStream;
   10:  iload_1
   11:  invokevirtual   #3; //Method java/io/PrintStream.println:(I)V
   14:  iinc    1, 1
   17:  goto    2
   20:  return

}

So you can see, there is no difference associated with for and while usage.

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