boundedloop

Boundedloop is a term used in computer science to describe a loop construct or iterative process that is guaranteed to terminate because there is an explicit upper bound on the number of iterations or on the amount of data processed. The bound can be a fixed constant, derived from input constraints, or a combination of both. The concept helps to ensure predictable execution time and memory usage, and is commonly used in teaching, safety-critical software, and formal verification contexts.

Implementation and variants: The most common form is a counter-based bound, such as a loop that runs at most N times: for i from 1 to N do ... or while condition and i < N. Bounded loops can also use input-derived bounds (e.g., processing at most min(n, maxItems)). Some systems employ bounded model checking to verify properties within a fixed depth, effectively bounding the loop unrolling.

Applications: Bounded loops are useful to prevent infinite loops in user-programmable environments, embedded and real-time systems, and automated verification pipelines. They facilitate static analysis, worst-case execution time estimation, and resource-bounded computation.

Limitations: A bound must be chosen carefully; too small a bound can cause incomplete results or missed events, while too large a bound may degrade performance and memory behavior. Off-by-one errors and incorrect assumptions about input characteristics are common pitfalls.

See also: termination, loop invariant, bounded model checking, worst-case execution time, fixed bound.