Euphoria - Flow Control

Program execution flow refers to the order in which program statements get executed. By default the statements get executed one after another.
However; many times the order of execution needs to be altered from the default order, to get the task done.
Euphoria has a number of flow control statements that you can use to arrange the execution order of statements.

The exit statement

Exiting a loop is done with the keyword exit. This causes flow to immediately leave the current loop and recommence with the first statement after the end of the loop.

Syntax

The syntax of an exit statement is as follows −

exit [ "Label Name" ] [Number]

The exit statement terminates the latest and innermost loop until an optional label name or number is specified.
A special form of exit N is exit 0. This leaves all levels of loop, regardless of the depth. Control continues after the outermost loop block. Likewise, exit -1 exits the second outermost loop, and so on.

Example

#!/home/euphoria-4.0b2/bin/eui

integer b

for a = 1 to 16 do
   printf(1, "value of a %d\n", a)
   
   if a = 10 then
      b = a
      exit
   end if
end for

printf(1, "value of b %d\n", b)

This produces the following result −

value of a 1
value of a 2
value of a 3
value of a 4
value of a 5
value of a 6
value of a 7
value of a 8
value of a 9
value of a 10
value of b 10

The break statement

The break statement works exactly like the exit statement, but applies to if statements or switch statements rather than to loop statements of any kind.

Syntax

The syntax of break statement is as follows −

break [ "Label Name" ] [Number]

The break statement terminates the latest and innermost if or switch block until an optional label name or number is specified.
A special form of break N is break 0. This leaves the outer most if or switch block, regardless of the depth. Control continues after the outermost block. Likewise, break -1 breaks the second outermost if or switch block, and so on.

Example

#!/home/euphoria-4.0b2/bin/eui

integer a, b
sequence s = {'E','u', 'p'}

if s[1] = 'E' then
   a = 3
   
   if s[2] = 'u' then
      b = 1
      if s[3] = 'p' then
         break 0 -- leave topmost if block
      end if
      a = 2
   else
      b = 4
   end if
else
   a = 0
   b = 0
end if

printf(1, "value of a %d\n", a)
printf(1, "value of b %d\n", b)

This produces the following result −

value of a 3
value of b 1

The continue statement

The continue statement continues execution of the loop it applies to by going to the next iteration and skipping the rest of an iteration.
Going to the next iteration means testing a condition variable index and checking whether it is still within bounds.

Syntax

The syntax of continue statement is as follows −

continue [ "Label Name" ] [Number]

The continue statement would re-iterate the latest and inner most loop until an optional label name or number is specified.
A special form of continue N is continue 0. This re-iterate the outer most loop, regardless of the depth. Likewise, continue -1 starts from the second outermost loop, and so on.

Example

#!/home/euphoria-4.0b2/bin/eui

for a = 3 to 6 do
   printf(1, "value of a %d\n", a)

   if a = 4 then
      puts(1,"(2)\n")
      continue
   end if

   printf(1, "value of a %d\n", a*a)
end for
This would produce following result:

value of a 3
value of a 9
value of a 4
(2)
value of a 5
value of a 25
value of a 6
value of a 36

The retry statement

The retry statement continues execution of the loop it applies to by going to the next iteration and skipping the rest of an iteration.

Syntax

The syntax of retry statement is as follows −

retry [ "Label Name" ] [Number]

The retry statement retries executing the current iteration of the loop it applies to. The statement branches to the first statement of the designated loop neither testing anything nor incrementing the for loop index.
A special form of retry N is retry 0. This retries executing the outer most loop, regardless of the depth. Likewise, retry -1 retries the second outermost loop, and so on.
Normally, a sub-block which contains a retry statement also contains another flow control keyword like exit, continue, or break. Otherwise, the iteration would be endlessly executed.

Example

#!/home/euphoria-4.0b2/bin/eui

integer errors = 0
integer files_to_open = 10

for i = 1 to length(files_to_open) do
   fh = open(files_to_open[i], "rb")
   
   if fh = -1 then
      if errors > 5 then
         exit
      else
         errors += 1
         retry
      end if
   end if
   file_handles[i] = fh
end for

Since retry does not change the value of i and tries again opening the same file, there has to be a way to break from the loop, which the exit statement provides.

The goto statement

The goto statement instructs the computer to resume code execution at a labeled place.
The place to resume execution is called the target of the statement. It is restricted to lie in the current routine, or the current file if outside any routine.

Syntax

The syntax of goto statement is as follows −

goto "Label Name"

The target of a goto statement can be any accessible label statement −

label "Label Name"

Label names must be double quoted constant strings. Characters that are illegal in Euphoria identifiers may appear in a label name, since it is a regular string.

Example

#!/home/euphoria-4.0b2/bin/eui

integer a = 0

label "FIRST"
printf(1, "value of a %d\n", a)
a += 10

if a < 50 then
   goto "FIRST"
end if 
printf(1, "Final value of a %d\n", a)

This produces the following result −

value of a 0
value of a 10
value of a 20
value of a 30
value of a 40
Final value of a 50