每个人都知道Dijkstra的《致编辑的信》:goto语句被认为是有害的(这里。html transcript和这里。pdf),从那时起,就有一种强大的推动力,尽可能避免使用goto语句。虽然可以使用goto来生成不可维护的、庞大的代码,但它仍然存在于现代编程语言中。即使Scheme中先进的连续控制结构也可以被描述为复杂的后向。

在什么情况下需要使用goto?什么时候最好避免?

作为一个后续问题:C提供了一对函数setjmp()和longjmp(),它们不仅提供了在当前堆栈帧内进行跳转的能力,还提供了在任何调用帧内进行跳转的能力。这些应该被认为和goto一样危险吗?更危险?


Dijkstra自己也对这个头衔感到后悔,因为这不是他的责任。在EWD1308的结尾(也在这里。pdf),他写道:

Finally a short story for the record. In 1968, the Communications of the ACM published a text of mine under the title "The goto statement considered harmful", which in later years would be most frequently referenced, regrettably, however, often by authors who had seen no more of it than its title, which became a cornerstone of my fame by becoming a template: we would see all sorts of articles under the title "X considered harmful" for almost any X, including one titled "Dijkstra considered harmful". But what had happened? I had submitted a paper under the title "A case against the goto statement", which, in order to speed up its publication, the editor had changed into a "letter to the Editor", and in the process he had given it a new title of his own invention! The editor was Niklaus Wirth.

Donald E. Knuth写了一篇关于这个主题的经典论文,它与Dijkstra的论文相匹配,那就是结构化编程与语句。阅读既有助于重建上下文,也有助于对主题的非教条性理解。在本文中,Dijkstra对这个案例的观点被报道,并且更加强烈:

Donald E. Knuth:我相信通过呈现这样一个 事实上,我并不是不同意 Dijkstra的观点,因为 他最近写道: “请不要落入。 相信我是可怕的 教条的关于[去]的教条的 声明)。我觉得很不舒服 感觉别人在做 宗教出来了,好像 编程的概念问题 只用一个小技巧就能解决,用什么 一种简单的编码纪律!”


当前回答

Using a goto makes it far too easy to write "spaghetti code" which is not particularly maintainable. The most important rule to follow is to write readable code, but of course it depends on what the goals of the project are. As a "best practice" avoiding a goto is a good idea. It's something extreme programming types would refer to as "code smell" because it indicates that you may be doing something wrong. Using a break while looping is remarkably similar to a goto, except it isn't a goto, but again is an indication that the code may not be optimal. This is why, I believe, it is also important to not find more modern programming loopholes which are essentially a goto by a different name.

其他回答

没有所谓的GOTO被认为是有害的。

GOTO是一种工具,和所有工具一样,它可以被使用和滥用。

然而,在编程世界中有许多工具倾向于被滥用而不是被使用,GOTO就是其中之一。Delphi的WITH语句是另一个。

就我个人而言,我在典型的代码中不使用这两种方法,但我有过GOTO和WITH的奇怪用法,这是有保证的,另一种解决方案将包含更多的代码。

最好的解决方案是编译器只警告你关键字被污染了,你必须在语句周围塞几个pragma指令来消除警告。

这就像告诉你的孩子不要拿着剪刀跑。剪刀并不坏,但使用它们可能不是保持健康的最佳方式。

goto的基本思想是给你太多的自由去做你不想做的事情。它可能在与goto语句无关的地方导致错误,因此使代码维护更加困难。如果你认为你需要一个goto语句,你错了:),你应该重新思考你的代码结构。这就是为什么现代编程语言投入了大量精力来提供可读的、可维护的流控制结构和异常处理机制。

我也不同意拉塞夫克的观点。由于goto被滥用的次数多于正确使用的次数,我相信它在设计良好的语言中没有一席之地。即使对于goto的“理想”用途,其他需要更多代码的方式也应该是首选。

所以总的来说,是的,它仍然被认为是有害的。

因为goto可以用于令人困惑的元编程

Goto既是高级控件表达式,也是低级控件表达式,因此它没有适合大多数问题的合适设计模式。

它是低级的,因为goto是一个基本操作,它实现了一些高级操作,比如while或foreach之类的。

从某种意义上说,它是高级的,当以某种方式使用时,它将以一种清晰的顺序执行的代码,以一种不间断的方式(除了结构化循环),并将其转换为逻辑片段,这些逻辑片段有足够的gotos,可以动态地重新组装逻辑。

所以,有平淡的一面,也有邪恶的一面。

平淡的一面是,一个向上指向的goto可以实现一个完全合理的循环,而一个向下指向的goto可以执行一个完全合理的中断或返回。当然,实际的while、break或return语句可读性更强,因为可怜的人不需要为了了解全局而模拟goto语句的效果。总的来说,这是个坏主意。

The evil side involves a routine not using goto for while, break, or return, but using it for what's called spaghetti logic. In this case the goto-happy developer is constructing pieces of code out of a maze of goto's, and the only way to understand it is to simulate it mentally as a whole, a terribly tiring task when there are many goto's. I mean, imagine the trouble of evaluating code where the else is not precisely an inverse of the if, where nested ifs might allow in some things that were rejected by the outer if, etc, etc.

Finally, to really cover the subject, we should note that essentially all early languages except Algol initially made only single statements subject to their versions of if-then-else. So, the only way to do a conditional block was to goto around it using an inverse conditional. Insane, I know, but I've read some old specs. Remember that the first computers were programmed in binary machine code so I suppose any kind of an HLL was a lifesaver; I guess they weren't too picky about exactly what HLL features they got.

说了这么多,我曾经在我写的每个程序中都加了一个go,“只是为了惹恼那些纯粹主义者”。

许多现代编程语言使用它们的编译器来强制限制GOTO的使用——这减少了潜在的风险。例如,c#不允许您使用GOTO从循环体外部跳转到循环体。文档中提到了限制。

这是GOTO有时比过去更安全的一个例子。

在某些情况下,GOTO的使用与提前从函数返回相同(即提前跳出循环)。然而,良好的形式是有争议的。

在我所见过的每个平台上,高级控制结构都被实现为低级的goto(跳转)。例如,Java虚拟机有一个跳转字节码,但是没有if、else、while、For等字节码。

其中一些编译器会为一个简单的条件块创建意大利面条代码。

回答你的问题,去走仍然被那些认为它有害的人认为是有害的。Goto很容易失去结构化编程的优点。

最后,这是你的程序;所以你的决定。我建议在您能够自己回答问题之前不要使用goto,而是在特定问题的上下文中使用。