21 replies to this topic

[Donovan]

Why doesn't anyone use a goto statement anymore?

where ever you put goto name; it will go to any section with

name:

So for example.

BLOCK OF CODE HERE
goto name;

BLOCK OF CODE

BLOCK OF CODE

name:
(It would then start at the next block of code after name.)
BLOCK OF CODE


This will work up or down. For example.

mainMenu:
BLOCK OF CODE

BLOCK OF CODE

BLOCK OF CODE

goto mainMenu;

[dcs]

Because other programming structures largely make goto kludgey and irrelevant, relegating "proper" use of goto to very few situations. The ones you show are not them. ;)

[ZekeDragon]

Goto also can't be used to go into a try statement, making it's practical use in C++ very limited.

Goto is also difficult to read, since there's no way for you to know where that label is short of some kind of very detailed IDE.

I believe there may be uses for Goto... I've just never seen them.

[dcs]

An article I stumbled upon: Code Complete, First Edition

[debtboy]

I used to use it a lot in basicA
and occasionally in QuickBasic,
since then I haven't used it.
(whoops... showing my age)

[WingedPanther]

QuickBasic... the good old days when you could start a loop at 0 and poke 0 into the loop variable :) Until DOS froze, that is.

[BlaineSch]

I think goto just makes it terribly hard to read and maintain code. Structured programming took over.

[debtboy]

WingedPanther said:

QuickBasic... the good old days when you could start a loop at 0 and poke 0 into the loop variable :) Until DOS froze, that is.

Yea, back when you could output whatever binary pattern you
wanted on the bits of your printer port w/ only 1 command!!
The good old days... :D

[Aereshaa]

People don't use goto because of the very good reasons given by Edsger Dijkstra in his article: "Goto Statement Considered Harmful".
I think the only justifiable gotos in C are in lieu of exceptions. In any case, one should just use setjmp.h

[cdg10620]

One thing that I forget to keep in mind when developing is that I may not always be the person working on the code I'm writing. This sometimes results in code that is messy and hard to maintain due to bad naming, structure, or lack of clear comments.

[dcs]

Aereshaa said:

I think the only justifiable gotos in C are in lieu of exceptions. In any case, one should just use setjmp.h

Ick.

/imo

[Termana]

Goto can make code hard to follow, or drag functions out when it could be split into two (or more) functions. It can also make modifying code hard. IMO.