Delphi Basics : Goto command

DelphiBasics

Goto
Keyword

Forces a jump to a label, regardless of nesting

keyword Goto(Goto label

Description

The Goto keyword forces a jump to a given label.

It should Never be used in modern code since it makes code very difficult to maintain.

It is mostly used to force a termination of heavily nested code, where the logic to safely exit would be tortuous.

Never jump into or out of try statements, or into a loop or conditional block.

Be careful!

Notes

Use with extreme caution and when fully justified.

Related commands

Break		Forces a jump out of a single loop
Continue		Forces a jump to the next iteration of a loop
Exit		Exit abruptly from a function or procedure
Halt		Terminates the program with an optional dialog
RunError		Terminates the program with an error dialog
Abort		Aborts the current processing with a silent exception

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Example code :

var
  i : Integer;

label
  GotoLabel;

begin
  for i := 1 to 10 do
  begin
    ShowMessage('i = '+IntToStr(i));

    if i = 4 then Goto GotoLabel;  // Conditionally exit the loop
  end;

  ShowMessage('The loop finished OK');
GotoLabel:
  ShowMessage('Loop finished with i = '+IntToStr(i));
end;

Show full unit code

  i = 1
  i = 2
  i = 3
  i = 4
  Loop finished with i = 4