I just used a goto!

[Delphi 7 Solutions]

These days the "goto" is back, I find this very unfortunate. Every time someone writes a RETURN or a BREAK statement, he/she is actually writing a GOTO And the worse thing about it is that this is encouraged these days...

[Super Lloyd]

he's back, and he's angry! ;P however I do believe that while do jump the code pointer, they are their own assembly instruction! ;P

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[Mike Winiberg]

Well said! Not using GOTO has become a matter of faith rather than good programming practice. I've seen some totally impenetrable code that has a indeterminate state, all because of the convoluted efforts the devs went through to avoid a GOTO. (Including rafts of local variables called things like a, aa, aaa, aaaa, x, xx, xxx, xxxx etc!) GOTO is just another tool - it can be used appropriately or badly, just like any other...

[Fueled By Decaff]

Phew, just in time.

[Fueled By Decaff]

Ah, a GOSUB

[Fueled By Decaff]

The GOTO statement used to be pure evil. In BASIC it used to go to a line number. Not very easy to understand what it is intended to be doing at the best of times. Add in the fact that you could renumber every line in the program with the RENUMBER command and the GOTO statements would not update to reflect the line number changes and you have GOTO hell. (Not to mention that a lot of versions of BASIC at the time had missing features, for example procedures, functions, while loops, repeat loops.) These days with the GOTO statement going to a label it has had it's teeth filed and, while not a common feature is nothing to be afraid of.

[Fabio Franco]

What language?

To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems - Homer Simpson ---- Our heads are round so our thoughts can change direction - Francis Picabia

[BillWoodruff]

When can I read the article ?

«Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?» T. S. Elliot

[TNCaver]

See my signature.

If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP.

[Super Lloyd]

C#

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[sparklesalt]

Use of GOTO is not always bad, nor a sign of poor design. Have a look at the Linux kernel source code sometime. You will see it littered with GOTOs everywhere. GOTO is an elemental part of their error-handling paradigm, they use it in a defined and regular way. The Linux kernel is not the only major and highly regarded software project to use this method, either, it just may be the most prominent. But that said, a colleague of mine tried to employ the same paradigm to some of our own in-house code, and upper management pitched a hellacious fit when they got wind of somebody trying use GOTOs. A group of developers (very good ones) mounted a defense of it, but it was no use. Everybody flatly over-ruled, everybody shamed for having the thought.

[Gerardo Orozco]

IMHO goto's can really offer a very clean solution when coding in C and you want to implement a sort of manual "finally" or "rollback" logic. Here is an example of code that is rolling back some state if something goes wrong. I like it because the intent is clear (there is a single label we are jumping to), I'm avoiding repeating cleanup code and I'm not introducing additional indentation levels that would be necessary with a structured approach - if we want to avoid multiple exit points.

static STATUS Android_PrepareAudioBuffers(void) {
STATUS errCode;
SLresult result;
_slBufferQueueItf = NULL;
/* Obtain interface to the AudioBufferQueue object */
result = (*_slRecorderInstance)->GetInterface(_slRecorderInstance, SL_IID_ANDROIDSIMPLEBUFFERQUEUE,
&_slBufferQueueItf);

if( result != SL_RESULT_SUCCESS ) {
LOGE("%s - Error calling _slRecorderInstance->GetInterface(SL_IID_ANDROIDSIMPLEBUFFERQUEUE)", __func__);
errCode = S_ERR_OPENSLES_GET_INTERFACE;
goto fail_point;
}

/* Register buffer-ready call-back */
result = (*_slBufferQueueItf)->RegisterCallback(_slBufferQueueItf, Android_RecordCallback, NULL);
if( result != SL_RESULT_SUCCESS ) {
LOGE("%s - Error calling _slBufferQueueItf->RegisterCallback()", __func__);
errCode = S_ERR_OPENSLES_REGISTER_CALLBACK;
goto fail_point;
}

/* Specify an event mask to ensure the callback fires only when an audio buffer is full */
(*_slRecorderItf)->SetCallbackEventsMask(_slRecorderItf, SL_RECORDEVENT_BUFFER_FULL);

_activeBuffIdx = 0;
/* Initialize buffer queue by enqueing all buffers at once.
When a buffer is filled, it is dequeued and the registered call-back is called
The buffer should be re-enqueued when processed to implement circular-buffer-list
functionality */

int i;
for( i = 0; i < RECORD_BUFFER_COUNT; i++ ) {
result = (*_slBufferQueueItf)->Enqueue(_slBufferQueueItf, _buffers[i], _buffSz);
if( result != SL_RESULT_SUCCESS ) {
LOGE("%s - Error calling_slBufferQueueItf->Enqueue()", __func__);
errCode = S_ERR_OPENSLES_ENQUEUE_BUFF;
goto fail_point;
}
}
return S_OK;
fail_point:
// rollback state
if( _slBufferQueueItf ) {
(*_slBufferQueueItf)->RegisterCallback(_slBufferQueueItf, NULL, NULL);
(*_slBufferQueueItf)->Clear(_slBufferQueueItf);
_slBufferQueueItf = NULL;
}
return errCode;
}

[englebart]

Which language? Probably a member of the "C" family. (C, C++, C#) Java killed goto with the "labeled break" which allows you to only "goto" the statement after a close curly brace.

[Fabio Franco]

Code sample would be nice. Because honestly, with the amount of control structures and object orientation support it provides I don't see a reason to use it. In fact. I work with C# since I was 24 years old (I am 36 now). Never had to use goto since (except from a few side projects in C). I used moro goto on imperative/structured/procedural languages like C, C++ and BASIC. So on purely objected oriented programming, whenever I thought of goto, it flashed a yellow light to me indicating I probably got some design patterns wrong. After some time I never got that yellow light again. I am not saying your use is not justified, I just can't wrap my head around a reason to use it.

To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems - Homer Simpson ---- Our heads are round so our thoughts can change direction - Francis Picabia

[Super Lloyd]

I didn't use goto in the end.. had to write a public static function and used it instead....

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[Super Lloyd]

C# used a static public function instead.. because it turned out...

A new .NET Serializer All in one Menu-Ribbon Bar Taking over the world since 1371!

[sasadler]

I grew up on assembly code in the late 70's so I have no issues using goto's in my coding (C/C++ these days) when approriate. The idea that goto's are inherently bad is just bogus. There is a relatively small class of functions that are shorter and easier to understand when coded with a goto as opposed to the convoluted looping required to do the same thing. And being an old fart, shorter and easier to understand is a good thing! Especially when I have to add new features to code I wrote years ago.

[Kirk 10389821]

I had a complicated set of "Insurance Premium Calculations" that was all GOTO based because of short-cut logic (If the person was < 25, skip this discount, etc) Ultimately, I used a while (1=1) { // setup initial values // instead of a goto, just a break; // insert 30 different logic checks, each with a break, after setting/adjusting rating parameters. break; } In the end, what's the difference? If there was only 1 label every goto could go to... And there was, then it is pretty much the same. (I was always hopeful nobody put a continue inside that loop!)

[Michael Breeden]

As others have said, it's largely what Try Catch does. It has been pointed out though that using break and return in a method is really the same thing in a way. I've used on goto in my code, but based on that last sentence I plan to use them regularly though in the future, just always within a method. Instead of a catch -> return -> handle error, use a catch -> goto error handling at end of method -> end of method returns.

[gggustafson]

Does anyone remember when the use of gotos was first discussed? Does anyone remember the reason Dijkstra gave for their elimination? To me, I'm sorry, this thread seems somewhat juvenile

Gus Gustafson