Golang : How to GOTO ?




In this tutorial, we will learn how to use goto keyword in Golang. It has been a while since I saw this keyword goto in a programming language and only now that I've come across goto again in Golang. ( ...started learning how to program back when I was 12 years old with Turbo Pascal 6.0 and Quick Basic.)

There has been a raging debate about the merit of having goto and the potential bugs that careless usage of goto will introduce. However, this tutorial is not about pro and cons of having goto keyword.

The codes below will demonstrate how to use a goto to reroute the control flow back to a previously defined label within the same code block.

NOTE : The label name is case sensitive.

 package main

 import (
 "fmt"
 "os"
 )

 func gotoFunc() {
 n := 1
 GotoHere: // this is a Goto label
 fmt.Println(n)
 n++

 if n == 9 {
 fmt.Println("break goto loop")
 os.Exit(0)
 }

 goto GotoHere // jump back to "GotoHere"
 }

 func main() {
 gotoFunc()
 }

Output :

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

break goto loop

You can read up more about goto at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goto. Hope this simple tutorial can be useful to you.





By Adam Ng

IF you gain some knowledge or the information here solved your programming problem. Please consider donating to the less fortunate or some charities that you like. Apart from donation, planting trees, volunteering or reducing your carbon footprint will be great too.


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