On: Improvements to static analysis in GCC 14

[lelanthran]

> Languages other than C give you options for flow control so that you don't need goto for that.

The idiom `if (error) goto cleanup` is about the only thing I see goto used for. What flow control replaces that other than exceptions?

[sirwhinesalot → lelanthran]

Jumping out of nested loops. Implementing higher level constructs like yield or defer. State machines. Compiler output that uses C as a "cross-platform" assembly language.

All of them are better served with more specialized language constructs but as a widely applicable hammer goto is pretty nice.

I don't expect C to have good error handling or generators any time soon but with goto I can deal with it.

[lelanthran → sirwhinesalot]

I'm actually familiar with this, having used libprotothreads in production for about 4 years.

Something like libprotothreads can't actually be implemented in a language that doesn't have gotos, so yeah, I see the need for it.

[nickpsecurity → sirwhinesalot]

Compiling HLL constructs in some of those scenarios ultimately produces a jump statement. So, it makes sense that a higher-level version of a jump would be helpful in the same situations.

[randomdata → lelanthran]

> What flow control replaces that other than exceptions?

defer has gained in popularity for that situation.

[cozzyd → lelanthran]

RAII + destructors

Though gcc supports cleanup functions, just not very ergonomically.