Comments on: Vectorized goto in MATLAB

By: Husam Aldahiyat

Husam Aldahiyat — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 18:47:55 +0000

Try this, not truly ‘vectorized’, but close enough. Not a joke either (well, mostly):

http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/26949-vectorized-goto-statement

By: Joel

Joel — Mon, 10 May 2010 18:17:14 +0000

Stumbled onto this today and I love the fact that after 4 years, users are still struggling with how to properly implement Matlab’s goto command. While I understand that documentation of the command is not great, I think Loren’s thorough explanation above puts it within reach of common sense.

thanks Loren, this was just the help that I needed to get through a long afternoon.

By: Loren

Loren — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 16:04:02 +0000

Mark-

You’ll have to keep waiting. There’s no current plan for introducing goto into MATLAB.

You’d be better served by using existing constructs like break/continue in loops and putting common pieces of code into functions.

–Loren

By: mark deyoung

mark deyoung — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 15:52:12 +0000

It’s 2010 and where is my beloved GOTO?

Using line numbers? If I insert a new line 1051… will my vector update automagically? If not, that’s a seriously bad implementation from the standpoint of maintiability.

Not a great idea from the standpoint of readability/maintainability… goto (line1051) may work but what does is mean? I have to goto line 1051 to figure that out.

What happened to the tried and true concept of using labels like

goto (GetUserInput)

I can construct workarounds the lack of a gotostatement , but why should I have to take the time and create structures that clutter my code to same something as simple and CLEAR as

Label:GetUserIput UserInputInvalid = GetUserInputDialog(....);
if UserInputInvalid goto (GetUserIput);

Which could of course be shortened to the cryptic

Label:GetUserIput if GetUserInputDialog(...) goto GetUserIput;

and doesn’t allow for an escape unless the code is foolproof.

By: Loren

Loren — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 11:28:01 +0000

Nick-

It really depends on your code. You can rearrange code to use subfunctions or nested functions, and break and continue statements in loops.

–Loren

By: Nick

Nick — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 09:27:19 +0000

Hello

I try to figure out what is going with “go to” statment in MatLab but I am afraid it’s a big mess for me.My issue is the simplest one: Let’s say I am in line 32 and I want to go in line 87 how I do that?
What happens when I am in an IF statment and I need to say:
if(bla bla bla)
matlab code
else
“go to” line 51
end
Thanks in advance
Nick

By: Loren

Loren — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 18:21:31 +0000

Dr. Phillip Feldman and Mray,

I have placed your request in the enhancement database. Thank you for the feedback.

–Loren

By: Mray

Mray — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 03:20:40 +0000

Often, I like to ‘break’ out of nested loops.
It would really help having a function that would allow that.

By: Dr. Phillip M. Feldman

Dr. Phillip M. Feldman — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 01:38:04 +0000

Turning serious for just a moment: In nested loops, “break” exits only from the loop in which it occurs. If Matlab had a goto statement, one legitimate application would be to break out of nested loops. Currently, there is no good way of handling this situation in Matlab.

By: Loren

Loren — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 00:42:39 +0000

Huda-

Look into try-catch, and writing functions that are reusable so you can call them from different sites in your code.

–Loren