Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cca!g-rh
From: g-rh@cca.CCA.COM (Richard Harter)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: The D Programming Language: cases (fallthrough)
Message-ID: <25348@cca.CCA.COM>
Date: 6 Mar 88 19:08:59 GMT
References: <222965b9@ralf.home> <2403@umd5.umd.edu> <25200@cca.CCA.COM> <401@tub.UUCP>
Reply-To: g-rh@CCA.CCA.COM.UUCP (Richard Harter)
Organization: Computer Corp. of America, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 38
Keywords: C case fallthrough

In article <401@tub.UUCP> cabo@tub.UUCP (Carsten Bormann) writes:
>In article <25200@cca.CCA.COM> g-rh@CCA.CCA.COM.UUCP (Richard Harter) writes:
>[about a solution to get back some expressive power that will be lost if
> ``case'' implies ``break'':]
>
>(Current) C already has a good fallthrough statement.
>It is called (surprise):
>goto.

	[transferring between cases goto shown.]

	But, but, but... I had naturally supposed that the goto would be
dropped from D.  :-)

	Actually, does anyone use goto's in C to any signifigant extent?
Currently I average about one goto per 10,000 lines of code, all of them
being transfers to a procedure epilog, e.g

foobaz() {
  ....
  allocate space and other setup
  ....
  if (some_special_condition) goto wrapup;
  ....
wrapup:
  deallocate space and other cleanup
  }

	Almost every language has a goto construct, apparently on the
principle "We know you won't use goto's, but there might be a special
case where you need one, so here it is - better to be safe than sorry."
But do people actually use it to any signifigant extent?  Why not just
drop it?
-- 

In the fields of Hell where the grass grows high
Are the graves of dreams allowed to die.
	Richard Harter, SMDS  Inc.