Purpose of while(1); statement in C

Question

What purpose does while(1); serve ? I am aware while(1) (no semicolon) loops infinitely and is similar to a spinlock situation. However I do not

Answer 1

As others have said, it's just an infinite loop that does nothing, completely analogous to

while (1) {
    /* Do nothing */
}

The loop with the semicolon does have a body. When used as a statement, a single semicolon is a null statement, and the loop body consists of that null statement.

For readability, to make it plain to the reader that the null statement is the body of the loop, I recommend writing it on a separate line:

while (1)
    ;

Otherwise it is easy to miss it at the end of the "while" line, where there usually isn't a semicolon, and the reader can mistake the next line as the body of the loop.

Or use an empty compound statement instead.