The goto statement

A goto statement causes your program to unconditionally transfer control to the statement associated with the label specified on the goto statement.

goto statement syntax
 
>>-goto--label_identifier--;-----------------------------------><
 

Because the goto statement can interfere with the normal sequence of processing, it makes a program more difficult to read and maintain. Often, a break statement, a continue statement, or a function call can eliminate the need for a goto statement.

If an active block is exited using a goto statement, any local variables are destroyed when control is transferred from that block.

You cannot use a goto statement to jump over initializations.

A goto statement is allowed to jump within the scope of a variable length array, but not past any declarations of objects with variably modified types.

The following example shows a goto statement that is used to jump out of a nested loop. This function could be written without using a goto statement.

/**
 ** This example shows a goto statement that is used to
 ** jump out of a nested loop.
 **/

#include <stdio.h>
void display(int matrix[3][3]);

int main(void)
{
   int matrix[3][3]=    {1,2,3,4,5,2,8,9,10};
   display(matrix);
   return(0);
}

void display(int matrix[3][3])
{
   int i, j;

   for (i = 0; i < 3; i++)
      for (j = 0; j < 3; j++)
      {
         if ( (matrix[i][j] < 1) || (matrix[i][j] > 6) )
            goto out_of_bounds;
         printf("matrix[%d][%d] = %d\n", i, j, matrix[i][j]);
      }
   return;
   out_of_bounds: printf("number must be 1 through 6\n");
}

Related information

• Labeled statements