Control Flow Software Statement

A Control Flow Software Statement is a software statement that define alternate Execution Paths (flows).

• AKA: Control Flow Statement.
• Context:
  • It can range from being a Conditional Software Statement to being an Unconditional Control Flow Statement (for an unconditional branch).
  • It can be an Algorithm Loop Statement.
  • It can be an Algorithm Conditional Statement.
  • …
• Example(s):
  • a Pseudocode Control Flow Statement in pseudocode.
  • a Scala Control of Flow Statement, such as do { println(x); x += 1} while (x < 5).
  • a Java Control Statement in Java PL.
  • a Perl Control Statement in Perl.
  • …
• Counter-Example(s):
  • a Process Branching Statement (in a branching process).
• See: Conditional Proof Statement.

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References

2011

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_flow
  • QUOTE: In computer science, control flow (or alternatively, flow of control) refers to the order in which the individual statements, instructions, or function calls of an imperative or a declarative program are executed or evaluated.

    Within an imperative programming language, a control flow statement is a statement whose execution results in a choice being made as to which of two or more paths should be followed. For non-strict functional languages, functions and language constructs exist to achieve the same result, but they are not necessarily called control flow statements.

    The kinds of control flow statements supported by different languages vary, but can be categorized by their effect:

    • continuation at a different statement (unconditional branch or jump),
    • executing a set of statements only if some condition is met (choice - i.e., conditional branch),
    • executing a set of statements zero or more times, until some condition is met (i.e., loop - the same as conditional branch),
    • executing a set of distant statements, after which the flow of control usually returns (subroutines, coroutines, and continuations),
    • stopping the program, preventing any further execution (unconditional halt).
  • Interrupts and signals are low-level mechanisms that can alter the flow of control in a way similar to a subroutine, but usually occur as a response to some external stimulus or event (that can occur asynchronously), rather than execution of an 'in-line' control flow statement. Self-modifying code can also be used to affect control flow through its side effects, but usually does not involve an explicit control flow statement (an exception being the ALTER verb in COBOL^{[citation needed]}).

2010

• http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/java/nutsandbolts/flow.html
  • QUOTE: The statements inside your source files are generally executed from top to bottom, in the order that they appear. Control flow statements, however, break up the flow of execution by employing decision making, looping, and branching, enabling your program to conditionally execute particular blocks of code. This section describes the decision-making statements (if-then, if-then-else, switch), the looping statements (for, while, do-while), and the branching statements (break, continue, return) supported by the Java programming language.

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