4.4. Control Structures

Normally, statements in a program are executed one after the other in the order in which they are written. This process is called sequential execution. Various Java statements, which we will soon discuss, enable the programmer to specify that the next statement to execute is not necessarily the next one in sequence. This is called transfer of control.

During the 1960s, it became clear that the indiscriminate use of transfers of control was the root of much difficulty experienced by software development groups. The blame was pointed at the goto statement (used in most programming languages of the time), which allows the programmer to specify a transfer of control to one of a very wide range of possible destinations in ...

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