Most gratuitous use of 'goto'

Tomas Petricek

I once (many years ago) used goto to swap two lines in my basic code (something like this):

goto a1
a2:
' something in basic
goto a3
a1:
' something in basic
goto a2
a3:

because on my laptop* didn't work Cut and Paste and this lines were to long :-D. Am I winner :) ?

*) My laptop: 5MHz (10 with turbo) CPU; 1MB RAM; No harddisk; 640x200 display with two colors (yellow and blue):rolleyes: i'm only pointer to myself

Alexander M

wasnt this a non-coding forum!? :cool: Don't try it, just do it! ;-)

Navin

I ran across some code where 'goto' was used to go to the end of a 'for' loop and do the next case. I think it's beause somebody didn't know about the continue statement. "When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute and it's longer than any hour. That's relativity." - Albert Einstein

Chris Maunder

I said "goto" not "coding". There's a difference :P cheers, Chris Maunder

Tim Ranker

I have come across quite a few programmers that don't know about continue.

Shog9 0

Well, when i was very young, i wanted to stay up and watch TV all night, but my mom said "goto bed." I certainly felt that was inane, as well as just plain wrong. ;P

Shog9

I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong...

Stefan de Zeeuw

Anyone on my team who dare's using goto is fired on the spot :mad:

Marc Clifton

When my ex-wife said "goto he..!!!". Marc Latest AAL Article My blog Join my forum!

Wesner Moise

A number of years ago Microsoft published the DefWndProc source code, which is what you call from your WndProc after you have processed a windows message. I believe the function was over 3000 lines of code, although I have seen such long switches in Excel functions, too, but maybe not that long. There was a label called "ICantBelieveIUsedGoto" in the function, that went from one location of the function to another location. What I don't understand is why each case could have been broken out into a separate function, thus making it easier to maintain. Oh, yes, I remember, because this was windows 3.1. Thanks, Wes

bryce

are they allowed to use "continue" and "break" ? bryce --- Publitor, making Pubmed easy. http://www.sohocode.com/publitor

Stefan de Zeeuw

I have been programming for 20+ years and never ever found any use for continue or break (except off course break in a switch statement), so to answer your question, no, they cannot. The same goes for the return statement. There can be only 1 entry point for a function and only 1 exit point. We always use a local var (result) to set the return value of a function. Using statements like goto, continue, break and return (the latter used in the wrong place) leads too often to "spaghetti code" IMHO.

bryce

as long as you're consistant :) i've heard people moan about the use of "goto" but they'll happily use break and continue... bit oxymoronic if you ask me :) Bryce --- Publitor, making Pubmed easy. http://www.sohocode.com/publitor

John M Drescher

I do use continue and break probably 1 time in every 10K lines of code I write. The multiple returns probably 1 in every 2K lines. I have not used a goto in several years so the ratio will probably be like 1 in every 250K lines I write... John

J Dunlap

There are definitely times when using continue, break, and return is actually better than not doing so. But when you find yourself needing to do it, it's important to ask yourself if there is a better way - breaking the function up into multiple functions, etc. If you say absolutely no gotos/continues/etc, occasionally you'll run into a place where in order to go by your rules you'll have to produce code that's more like 'spaghetti code' than if you allowed its use. * Believe me - I've seen this before (not very often, though). *Most of the cases were in complex string parsing functions.

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John M Drescher

jdunlap wrote: If you say absolutely no gotos/continues/etc, occasionally you'll run into a place where in order to go by your rules you'll have to produce code that's more like 'spaghetti code' than if you allowed its use. * Believe me - I've seen this before (not very often, though). These are the cases that I would use it. John

ColinDavies

I for one actually don't know how to use 'goto' Nor do I understand why it is used. Regardz Colin J Davies

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ColinDavies

AgedToPerfection wrote: (except off course break in a switch statement), I won't allow anyone to use sloppy switch statements in my projects. So I can't see the point of having a break at all. Regardz Colin J Davies

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Jack Puppy

here: TRACE(_T("I love Code Project and me! hehe haha\n")); goto here; I think the only time I've ever used goto was for "cleanup" purposes within a function. I do remember coming across a Microsoft VC++ sample that used goto - if I'm not mistaken it was one of the multimedia samples.

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Frank Olorin Rizzi

Tim Ranker wrote: I have come across quite a few programmers that don't know about continue. ..ehr... I continue to run into gotos... ...(double)ehr... F.O.R.

Frank Olorin Rizzi

ANd now, for something completely different... I am currently contemplating sticking a *bunch* of gotos in my next component. It's C, it's an authentication component, and therefore its logic is something like: IF (bad user id) { error=BAD_ID; skip the rest except the last piece; } IF (bad PSW) { error=BAD_PSW; skip the rest except the last piece; } ... last piece: record to log file/DB what happened; return Success/Failure So.. a *big bunch* of nested if's, or a *big bunch* of if-else's, or a *big bunch* of gotos Aside, if no-one notices, I'm sure tempteds to use the gotos just 'cause ! I'd stop only if it would lead to the problems I hit in Assembly, when the label is too far, but I have never seen that problem in C/C++. Geee... they gave use a goto statement... let's use when appropriate ! F.O.R.