{"id":29,"date":"2006-04-01T07:00:12","date_gmt":"2006-04-01T12:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/loren\/?p=29"},"modified":"2018-01-08T16:16:12","modified_gmt":"2018-01-08T21:16:12","slug":"goto-coming-at-long-last-vectorized-no-less","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/loren\/2006\/04\/01\/goto-coming-at-long-last-vectorized-no-less\/","title":{"rendered":"Vectorized goto in MATLAB"},"content":{"rendered":"

Customers have long asked for a GOTO statement in MATLAB to allow them to use programming constructs familiar to them from other languages they already know. I am pleased to announce that a proposal is making its way through the design process at MathWorks and I thought I'd use this opportunity to also get your feedback. Search the MATLAB newsgroup<\/a> to find many discussions on the topic of GOTO.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\ngoto<\/kbd> statements can be invaluable in certain types of programs. In fact, we do use it occasionally in the MATLAB C source code ourselves. To quote a sage, \u201cThe problem with GOTOs is not the GOTO itself, but with the label.\u201d So, we propose to introduce the goto<\/kbd> statement into MATLAB, with the usual MATLAB unique twist. Instead of labels identifying where to go, users can supply the destination(s) one of two ways:\r\n

    \r\n
  1. an array of line numbers\r\n<\/li>\r\n
  2. a cell array of strings, possibly with regular expressions, to denote the next lines of code containing the given expressions\r\n<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\nUpon reaching a goto<\/kbd>, MATLAB goes to each line \"simultaneously\" and proceeds from each location.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

    The rules for goto<\/kbd> are scoped to the file of interest,. We still need to specify the rules.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

    \r\nBehavior for line numbers:\r\n