Lua goto Statement

Lua Loops

The goto statement in Lua allows the control flow to be unconditionally transferred to the labeled statement.

Syntax

The syntax is as follows:

goto Label

The format for Label is:

:: Label ::

The following example uses goto in a conditional statement:

Example 1

local a = 1
::label:: print("--- goto label ---")

a = a+1
if a < 3 then
    goto label   -- Jump to label when a is less than 3
end

The output is:

--- goto label ---
--- goto label ---

As seen from the output, --- goto label --- is printed twice.

Example 2

i = 0
::s1:: do
  print(i)
  i = i+1
end
if i>3 then
  os.exit()   -- Exit when i is greater than 3
end
goto s1

The output is:

0
1
2
3

With goto, we can achieve the functionality of continue:

Example 3

for i=1, 3 do
    if i <= 2 then
        print(i, "yes continue")
        goto continue
    end
    print(i, " no continue")
    ::continue::
    print([[i'm end]])
end

The output is:

1   yes continue
i'm end
2   yes continue
i'm end
3    no continue
i'm end

Lua Loops