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The Evolution of GOTO Usage and Its Effects on Software Quality

  • Conference paper
Informatik’99

Part of the book series: Informatik aktuell ((INFORMAT))

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Abstract

Although GOTO has long been criticized for being “unstructured” and causing “unreliable” programs, it is still provided even by new languages, and actually used in practice. Why?

This paper presents the results of a study in which we analyzed the frequency and typical applications of GOTO in over 400 MB of C and Ada source code. The frequency analysis showed a large difference in GOTO density. The usage analysis demonstrated that the availability of sufficiently powerful control structures significantly reduces the frequency of GOTO. Relating these results to error rates reported for large software projects indicates that programs written in languages with lower GOTO density are more reliable.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University of Stuttgart, D-70565, Stuttgart, Germany

    Wolfgang Gellerich & Erhard Ploedereder

Authors
  1. Wolfgang Gellerich
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  2. Erhard Ploedereder
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. HNF Heinz Nixdorf MuseumsForum GmbH, Fürstenallee 7, 33102, Paderborn, Deutschland

    Kurt Beiersdörfer

  2. FB Mathematik/Informatik, Universität Paderborn, 33095, Paderborn, Deutschland

    Gregor Engels  & Wilhelm Schäfer  & 

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© 1999 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Gellerich, W., Ploedereder, E. (1999). The Evolution of GOTO Usage and Its Effects on Software Quality. In: Beiersdörfer, K., Engels, G., Schäfer, W. (eds) Informatik’99. Informatik aktuell. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-01069-3_57

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-01069-3_57

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-66450-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-662-01069-3

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