C++ and backward for loops

Although I'm programming for many years now sometimes I just make simple coding errors. Just recently I used a statement like

unsigned in i;

for (i=ml->moveCnt; i>=0; i--)

{

    // do something

}

It was meant to apply some actions for all moves in a list of moves. In reality this loop will never terminate except for not handled exceptions (like list index out of range). The reason is of course that the loop variable is an unsigned int, so the exit condition is never reached (i will always be greater or equal to 0).

The correct way of coding that would be

unsigned int i;

for (i=ml->moveCnt; i --> 0; )

{

  // do something

}

The "i --> 0" looks also very cool, but somehow those loop statements are a bit harder to read. So I use signed int and classical loop statements wherever possible.

Interestingly enough the C++ compiler I use does not warn about the first incorrect statement, even in the highest warning level. It warns however when it encounters a while (true) statement. But then it suggests to use a never ending for loop ( for (;;) )instead. Probably this is the reason why never ending for loops don't raise a compiler warning in Visual C++.