I have to fill out some documentation regarding a C project i worked on. One topic is whether I used “unconditional jumps”.
As far as I know, a “break” statement counts as a jump. And I have a few of those that fire when a condition in a loop is met. Does that make it a “conditional jump”?
Another example is when there are standard “break” statements in a switch case, are those conditional or unconditional?
Basically, what constitutes an “unconditional jump” in C?
3
It is a matter of terminology.
IMHO, any break, continue, goto, return which is not in the body of an if or else or case is an inconditional jump.
So obviously
if (foobar) goto somelabel;
is a conditional jump.
In
if (foobar) {
x = something();
y = other(x);
return;
}
I would believe that the return is conditional. Some people might object that because of the previous statements it is not (and only the entire block is conditional)
BTW, I heard of “unconditional jump” more when speaking of machine code than everything else.
Read also about basic blocks
I believe that your bureaucracy is just asking you if you used goto; you could ask your management or client about what is really meant. I feel sorry for you that you have to lose your time on such (IMHO stupid or useless) questions.
1
Conditional means it may not be followed depending on some condition. Unconditional means that is program flow reaches that point it always will continue at the target.
A if and a switch are a conditional jumps.
At the end of the then clause of an if is an unconditional jump to after the else clause. breaks in a switch are also unconditional.
9