A good example of the need for while loops is doing integer overflow
detection in RPC services. To do it properly, you need to be able to
check the length of each argument in the call (or response, since clients
can be vulnerable as well...)
If Bro provided the arguments in generic form to the policy script
(it doesn't currently, it instead provides parsed versions) then it would
be as a table - so the existing "for" operator would serve for iterating
through them.
I'm pushing back here because I want to understand if there's a compelling
need to add this language feature. I think for many uses, the existing
features will serve. That said, I expect there *are* such cases where a
more general loop construct is needed. But I want to better understand
where those are needed, because it's not clear that C-style "while" or
"for" will be the best way for them. There are other paradigms. For
example, S has very powerful array-oriented operators, such that it's
quite rare you ever need to write a for or while loop.
Vern