The appearance of an identifier label in the source program declares a label. Only a goto statement can transfer control to an identifier label. The following code fragment illustrates use of the goto statement and an identifier label to escape a tightly nested loop:
for( p = 0; p < NUM_PATHS; ++p )
{
NumFiles = FillArray( pFileArray, pszFNames )
for( i = 0; i < NumFiles; ++i )
{
if( (pFileArray[i] = fopen( pszFNames[i], "r" )) == NULL )
goto FileOpenError;
// Process the files that were opened.
}
}
FileOpenError:
cerr << "Fatal file open error. Processing interrupted.\n" );
In the above example, the goto statement transfers control directly to the statement that prints an error message if an unknown file-open error occurs.
The label has function scope and cannot be redeclared within the function. However, the same name can be used as a label in different functions.