Add 'goto' and 'continue'

Feature Requests Engine Features
#1

Both are very useful to have.

e.g.

for a = 1, 5 do
     if a == 2 then continue end
     print(a)
end

::done::
for a = 1, 5 do
     if a == 2 then goto done end
     print( a )
end
10 Likes
Ok i was dumb back then chill
Add loop keyword 'continue' to Rbx.Lua
#2

Aren’t gotos and continues not really used anymore because functions fill their purpose?
The only place I can think where one would be needed is jumping out of a nested loop, but you can still do that by wrapping the loop in a function

#3

I personally use continue all the time in gmod lua. It’s probably just preference.

#4

Both are very handy to have. (and continue can be done using labels iirc)

1 Like
#5

I couldn’t resist the obligatory xkcd.

740Ă—201 25.5 KB

Although you did show pretty decent use cases, simple goto can easily cause pretty great havoc, mess up states in a way that you wouldn’t expect. It feels very hacky and makes the code harder to read for others.

9 Likes
#6

While that’s a good concern, you don’t need goto to screw up code at all.

1 Like
#7 
for a = 1, 5 do
    if a == 2 then break end
    print( a)
end

Am I missing something? I can see a use for continue but you could also do

table.foreachi(tab, function (a)
    if a == 2 then return end
    print(a)
end)

Of course this only works when iterating tables, but you could easily create a function for this.

#8

Those werent use cases, just examples of how they were used :stuck_out_tongue:

1 Like
#9

Also, the ability to use goto to go backwards is something that can’t be done without rewriting your code partially.

1 Like
#10

Alternatively, you can also do

for a = 1, 5 do
	for _ = 1, 1 do
		if a == 2 then break end
		print(a)
	end
end

It’s not very pretty but it should always work.

#11

I believe the following is the fastest way ( speed wise ) to mimic continue in lua currently as (AFAIK) it translates into one instruction. Even so, continue would be a heck of a lot prettier and nicer to use.

for a = 1, 5 do
     repeat
          if a == 2 then do break end end
          print( a )
     until true
end
1 Like
#12

In my opinion and a lot of other peoples opinion goto can be seen as bad practice and lead to spaghetti code.

Sure there are a few cases where it could be used effectively but I imagine most people would use it incorrectly and I would hate to read their code.

3 Likes
#13

“Goto”

aaaaaaaaaa no

3 Likes
#14

To be honest the main one i want is continue, however, just because you personally don’t like goto or despise it’s presence doesn’t mean others don’t find it wonderfully helpful.

#15

goto causes readability to go out the window and makes it difficult to discern code flow. no support.

2 Likes
#16

I want gofrom. It assumes control of a past reality event at a certain position. Great for debugging.

14 Likes
#17

Tbh, once you’re a bit used to it, I don’t see what’s wrong with it? Badly formatted code will stay badly formatted code. Labels wouldn’t make well formatted code suddenly a mess.

2 Likes
#18

You neither need to use them nor any code written with them, I don’t see the problem.

#19

You don’t need to write code with comments, but not to do so is a bad time for you should you return to the project a while later. I think there are many more things you could say than defaulting to “if you don’t like it then don’t use it”.

The issue I have with this is that people will use these things in substitution of while loops, for loops, and function calls. Goto has a pretty niche use imo.

#20

That’s the opposite of what I said.

An equal comparison would be me saying “Add comments” and you saying “I don’t like comments”.

1 Like