➡️ A jump command ➡️ To jump in code

goto

1 9.1

A programming command that makes the program jump to another place in the code

noun
/ˈɡoʊˌtoʊ/

Specialized

: goto

This script includes a goto directive that helps bypass unnecessary calculations by jumping to a more relevant section.

Examples

Out-of-block goto.

Academic text (1999)
A connected series of "goto" instructions.

Fiction book (1999)
Lots of gotos and no functions!

Blog text (19)
Where opaque data is regarded in the same way that "goto" is today?

Blog text (10)
In programming, a goto statement may redirect the flow of execution to a specified line number.
Many developers prefer to avoid using goto because it can lead to complex and unmanageable code.

Surface Forms

goto singular

gotos plural

Morphology

goto = go (transparent) = to + go

The programming keyword is a direct concatenation of the English words 'go' + 'to' and its meaning ('go to a label') is directly inferable from those components in programming contexts. [Postprocessing: moved 'to' from base_words to prefix]

Etymology

Goto comes from the simple English command go to, which says 'move to' another place. So in programming it tells the computer to 'jump' to another line of code.