Induction variable

In computer science, an induction variable is a variable that gets increased or decreased by a fixed amount on every iteration of a loop or is a linear function of another induction variable. In computer science, an induction variable is a variable that gets increased or decreased by a fixed amount on every iteration of a loop or is a linear function of another induction variable. For example, in the following loop, i and j are induction variables: A common compiler optimization is to recognize the existence of induction variables and replace them with simpler computations; for example, the code above could be rewritten by the compiler as follows, on the assumption that the addition of a constant will be cheaper than a multiplication. This optimization is a special case of strength reduction.