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From: edw@ius2.cs.cmu.edu (Eddie Wyatt)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: goto's in C: an opinion...
Message-ID: <1237@ius2.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: Fri, 17-Jul-87 16:55:02 EDT
Article-I.D.: ius2.1237
Posted: Fri Jul 17 16:55:02 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 18-Jul-87 16:52:17 EDT
References: <3289@bigburd.PRC.Unisys.COM> <7571@beta.UUCP>
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI
Lines: 27
Keywords: C, goto, style
Summary: I hate absolutes


In an article by Skip Egdorf (hwe@beta.UUCP), Skip sez,
> There are NO legitimate uses for the goto statement...

   I sez..
   There is a whole class of problems that map very nicely into goto contructs.
They are simulation of NFAs and DFAs (ie finite state machines).

   States map very nicely to labels and transitions map very nicely into
if (input == ?) goto label.

   The most readable way one can represent the NFA/DFA is through a mesh
of gotos with a diagram of the machine in comments :-).

  For most other problems though, gotos are not need.

  I have to admit though, since my days of BASIC, I haven't used a single
goto statement.  The lexigraphical analysizers I've written, have been
simple enough that one case statement with some nicely place returns
will do the job.

-- 
					Eddie Wyatt

e-mail: edw@ius2.cs.cmu.edu

terrorist, cryptography, DES, drugs, cipher, secret, decode, NSA, CIA, NRO.