title: Meaning of -1 in Programming
body: <p>I hate to ask this question on here, but I have searched both SO and Google to no success. I have seen in many places statements such as <code>while(var != -1)</code> and other statements, often loops, containing some sort of reference to -1. Is there a certain meaning to the use of -1, or is it just used as giving an integer representation of a boolean, or something like that? I have mainly seen this in C# programming if that is any help.</p>