go to

v 1: move travel or proceed toward something; "He went to his

cabin." [syn: {repair to}, {resort to}]

2: be present at (meetings, church services, university), etc.;

"She attends class regularly"; "I rarely attend services

at my church"; "did you go to the metting?" [syn: {attend}]

[ant: {miss}]

3: make an appeal of request to; "She called on her

Representative to help her" [syn: {call on}, {call upon},

{appeal to}, {turn to}]

goto

(Or "GOTO", "go to", "GO TO", "JUMP", "JMP") A

construct and {keyword} found in several higher-level

programming languages (e.g. {Fortran}, {COBOL}, {BASIC}, {C})

to cause an {unconditional jump} or transfer of {control} from

one point in a program to another. The destination of the

jump is usually indicated by a {label}.

In some languages, a label is a line number, in which case

every statement may be labelled, in others a label is an

optional alphanumeric {identifier}. In any case, the

destination label usually follows the GOTO keyword.

Use of the GOTO instruction in {high level language}

programming fell into disrepute with the development and

general acceptance of {structured programmimg}, and especially

following the famous article "GOTO statement {considered

harmful}". Since a GOTO is effectively an {assignment} to the

{program counter}, it is tempting to make the generalisation

"assignment considered harmful" and indeed, this is the basis

of {functional programming}.

Nearly(?) all {machine language} {instruction set}s include a

GOTO instruction, though in this context it is usually called

branch or jump or some {mnemonic} based on these.

See also {COME FROM}.

(1995-04-17)