Go为什么有“ goto”语句

Question

Google's Go language is a new language. Therefor I was surprised to find that it has a 'goto' statement. I've always been taught that 'goto' statements are a thing of the past and evil for it occludes the actual flow of a program. Function (or methods if you will) are always a better way of controlling flow.

I must be missing something. Why and when is using 'goto' a good idea? Or why did Google include it?

Answer 1

When we actually check Gos source code (the standard library), we can see where gotos are actually well applied.

For example, in the math/gamma.go file, the goto statement is used:

  for x < 0 {
    if x > -1e-09 {
      goto small
    }
    z = z / x
    x = x + 1
  }
  for x < 2 {
    if x < 1e-09 {
      goto small
    }
    z = z / x
    x = x + 1
  }

  if x == 2 {
    return z
  }

  x = x - 2
  p = (((((x*_gamP[0]+_gamP[1])*x+_gamP[2])*x+_gamP[3])*x+_gamP[4])*x+_gamP[5])*x + _gamP[6]
  q = ((((((x*_gamQ[0]+_gamQ[1])*x+_gamQ[2])*x+_gamQ[3])*x+_gamQ[4])*x+_gamQ[5])*x+_gamQ[6])*x + _gamQ[7]
  return z * p / q

small:
  if x == 0 {
    return Inf(1)
  }
  return z / ((1 + Euler*x) * x)
}

The goto in this case saves us from introducing another (boolean) variable used just for control-flow, checked for at the end. In this case, the goto statement makes the code actually better to read and easier follow (quite in contrary to the argument against goto you mentioned).

Also note, that the goto statement has a very specific use-case. The language specification on goto states that it may not jump over variables coming into scope (being declared), and it may not jump into other (code-)blocks.