RE: [PHP-DEV] PHP 5.1

> > > As for my own example, many state machines make extensive > use of goto > > to avoid recursive calls. > > Goto is not required for that. State machines such as the > following > > state1: > ... > > goto state99; > > state99: > ... > > goto state2; > > done: > > can easily be rewritten as > > while (!end_condition) { > switch (state) { > case 1: > > state = 99; > break; > > case 99: > > state = 2; > break; > } > } > > - Sascha Last time I looked (which was a while ago so may have been since improved) PHP performed a linear search of case values, so took n/2 comparisons (where n is number of cases) on average to find the correct block to execute in a switch statement, wheras using goto doesn't have to perform any. Jared