Branching Statements- in C# || Full C# course || ABFirstTech

Branching Statements- in C#

Branching statements in C# are used to alter the normal flow of program execution. They include keywords like break, continue, return, goto, and throw. Let's discuss each of these branching statements:

1. break statement:

• Used to exit from a loop or switch statement prematurely.

• Example:

• for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) { if (i == 5) { break; // exit the loop when i equals 5 } Console.WriteLine(i); }

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2. continue statement:

• Used to skip the rest of the loop and jump to the next iteration.

• Example:

• for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) { if (i % 2 == 0) { continue; // skip even numbers } Console.WriteLine(i); }

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3. return statement:

• Used to exit a method and return a value, if the method has a return type.

• Example:

• int Square(int x) { return x * x; }

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4. goto statement:

• Allows you to transfer the control of the program to a labeled statement.

• It is generally considered bad practice and is rarely used in modern C# programming due to its potential to create unreadable and hard-to-maintain code. It can lead to "goto spaghetti" code.

• Example:

• int i = 0; loopStart: Console.WriteLine(i); i++; if (i < 5) { goto loopStart; }

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5. throw statement:

• Used to raise an exception explicitly.

• Example:

• int Divide(int numerator, int denominator) { if (denominator == 0) { throw new DivideByZeroException("Denominator cannot be zero."); } return numerator / denominator; }

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6. While break and continue are often used in loops, return and throw are used in methods/functions to control the program's flow. The use of goto should be avoided in most cases due to its negative impact on code readability and maintainability.