5.2 Locally Declared Labels

Each statement expression is a scope in which local labels can be declared. A local label is simply an identifier; you can jump to it with an ordinary goto statement, but only from within the statement expression it belongs to.

A local label declaration looks like this:

__label__ label;

or

__label__ label1, label2, ...;

Local label declarations must come at the beginning of the statement expression, right after the `({', before any ordinary declarations.

The label declaration defines the label name, but does not define the label itself. You must do this in the usual way, with label:, within the statements of the statement expression.

The local label feature is useful because statement expressions are often used in macros. If the macro contains nested loops, a goto can be useful for breaking out of them. However, an ordinary label whose scope is the whole function cannot be used: if the macro can be expanded several times in one function, the label will be multiply defined in that function. A local label avoids this problem. For example:

#define SEARCH(array, target) \ ({ \ __label__ found; \ typeof (target) _SEARCH_target = (target); \ typeof (*(array)) *_SEARCH_array = (array); \ int i, j; \ int value; \ for (i = 0; i < max; i++) \ for (j = 0; j < max; j++) \ if (_SEARCH_array[i][j] == _SEARCH_target) \ { value = i; goto found; } \ value = -1; \ found: \ value; \ })