The Go to Statement in C programming

Definition of Go to Statement

The go to statement is an unconditional branch. The result of the go to statement is a change in the flow of control to the first statement after the label specified in the goto statement.

A label is an identifier followed by a colon. A label must appear in the same function as the go to statement that refers to it.

Using go to statement in C programming language is considered as poor programming approach.

Go..To Statement Syntax

    Forward Reference:
    goto label;
    ---------------
    ---------------
    ---------------
    label:
    statement 1;
    statement 2;
    statement 3;

    Backward Reference:
    label:    
        statement 1;
        statement 2;
        statement 3;
    ---------------
    ---------------
    ---------------
    goto label;

Go to Statement Example

The program below uses goto statements to loop ten times and print the counter value each time.

After initializing count to 1, the if condition tests count to determine whether it’s greater than 10 (the label start: is skipped because labels do not perform any action).

If so, control is transferred from the goto to the first statement after the label end.

   
    // Using the goto statement
    #include <stdio.h>
    int main( void )
    { 
    int count = 1; // initialize count
    start: // label
      if ( count > 10 ) {
         goto end;
      } // end if
      printf( "%d  ", count );
      ++count;
      goto start; // goto start on line 9
     end: // label
      putchar( '\n' );
    } // end main

    Output:
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10