On Mon, Feb 06, 2012 at 11:12:53AM -0500, Jim Giner wrote: > NO "GO"! > As one who started back in the 70's with old style coding that utilized GoTo > in Cobol, Fortran, etc. and had to deal with "spaghetti code" written by > even earlier developers who never considered that someone else would have to > maintain their code, I feel strongly that GoTo is not to be used. I remember being faced with spaghetti code 35 odd years ago - yes, horrible. But what do we mean by ''spaghetti code'' ? I remember code where every 3rd statement was some form of GOTO - yuck! One very desirable feature of code is that it be clear, ie: lucid, able to be understood by others. Too many GOTO statements and it is hard. However: a few GOTOs can make things clearer. Think of a function that can fail in several different places (eg data validation, ...). But it is reading a file which needs to be closed before the function returns. I have seen code where some $IsError variable is tested in many places to see if things should be done. That is just as bad as lots of GOTO -- often when having to write something like that I will have a GOTO (in several places) to the bottom of the function that closes the file and returns failure. That is much clearer than extra variables. If I survey my code I find that I use one GOTO in about 4,000 lines of code - that I do not find excessive. There are, however, people who consider any GOTO as communion with the devil. IMHO: not so - if used sparingly. -- Alain Williams Linux/GNU Consultant - Mail systems, Web sites, Networking, Programmer, IT Lecturer. +44 (0) 787 668 0256 http://www.phcomp.co.uk/ Parliament Hill Computers Ltd. Registration Information: http://www.phcomp.co.uk/contact.php #include <std_disclaimer.h> -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
