Multi-party Loops
Although infinite loops in a single program are usually easy to predict, a loop caused by several entities interacting is much harder to foresee. Consider a server that always replies with an error message if it does not understand the request. Apparently, there is no possibility for an infinite loop in the server, but if there are two such servers (A and B), and A receives a message of unknown type from B, then A replies with an error message to B, B does not understand the error message and replies to A with its own error message, A does not understand the error message from B and sends yet another error message, and so on ad infinitum. One common example of such situation is an e-mail loop.
Read more about this topic: Infinite Loop
Famous quotes containing the word loops:
“An accurate charting of the American woman’s progress through history might look more like a corkscrew tilted slightly to one side, its loops inching closer to the line of freedom with the passage of time—but like a mathematical curve approaching infinity, never touching its goal. . . . Each time, the spiral turns her back just short of the finish line.”
—Susan Faludi (20th century)