What is the name of this part of a function?

Question

I'm working out an exercise for a generalized programming course. This specific problem is in Java, which I am not familiar with. I can infer most of it but there's one part I don't know the name of to research. Here's the code (and yes, it's intentionally very obtuse for learning purposes):

class Reuse {
    Reuse Reuse(Reuse Reuse) {
        Reuse:
            for (;;) {
                if (Reuse.Reuse(Reuse) == Reuse)
                    break Reuse;
            }
            return Reuse;
        }
}

The third line (Reuse:) is what I don't understand. What's the name of that part of the function?

That is a label. https://docs.oracle.com/javase/specs/jls/se7/html/jls-14.html#jls-14.7 — davidxxx, Oct 02 '19 at 18:47

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 02 '19 at 18:48

2

That's a label.

Labels are used with break and continue statements to make code execution jump to a specific line.

answered Oct 02 '19 at 18:48

Jonathan Kuhl

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Perfect. I'll accept this as soon as it lets me. – Brandon Lyons Oct 02 '19 at 18:49
2

Not to mention it's a bad practice to use labels. – Anand Mattikopp Oct 02 '19 at 18:51
@AnandMattikopp It's *often* a bad practice to use labels. Not always. – Malt Oct 02 '19 at 18:53
@Malt _Often_ is key. I'm yet to see a real use case for it's use in a high level language like java though. – Anand Mattikopp Oct 02 '19 at 20:02

What is the name of this part of a function?

1 Answers1