[c] Compiler warning - suggest parentheses around assignment used as truth value

When I try to compile the piece of code below, I get this warning:

warning: suggest parentheses around assignment used as truth value

Why does this happen? This is a rather common idiom, I believe. I even use something like it earlier on my code.

struct PIDList* 
getRecordForPID(struct PIDList* list, pid_t pid) {
    while(list = list->next)
        if (list->pid == pid)
            return list;

    return NULL;
}

While that particular idiom is common, even more common is for people to use = when they mean ==. The convention when you really mean the = is to use an extra layer of parentheses:

while ((list = list->next)) { // yes, it's an assignment

It's just a 'safety' warning. It is a relatively common idiom, but also a relatively common error when you meant to have == in there. You can make the warning go away by adding another set of parentheses:

while ((list = list->next))