Most gratuitous use of 'goto'

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.

peterchen

c'mon, it's the Maunder. He makes the rules, he breaks the rules.

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Kastellanos Nikos

Every instance of goto is a mistage! Exception: in asm you have to move from one place to other but there the instruction is called code>jmp, to distinguise it from goto found at hi-level languages! (conclusion: goto is an instruction which you can avoid under every circumstanced) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Memory leaks is the price we pay \0 01234567890123456789012345678901234

Ian Darling

I think that ""goto considered harmful" considered harmful" is the correct approach here. Like all programming constructs, there is an appropriate time and place for it (and that's college). Goto is unfortunate in the respect that it's easier to abuse than most, and has significantly fewer (NOT 0!) sane uses. Two notable uses I can think of are on error goto in pre .NET VB, and in some BASIC variants you could do goto i * 1000 (which was sometimes useful for menus and stuff) but I'm sure everyone will just toast me for reminding them ;p ) After all, goto is just a more general version of gosub, which required more care: 80 let ret=100 90 goto 1000 100 rem Next bit 1000 rem Do something 1010 goto ret :laugh::laugh::laugh: -- Ian Darling If I was any more loopy, I'd be infinite.

Kastellanos Nikos

I like break and continue... :) Please, can someone explain what's so bad about them? Can you really wtite :readable: code without continue and break? - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Memory leaks is the price we pay \0 01234567890123456789012345678901234