The DICT Development Group

  control structure
       
           One of the instructions, statements or groups of
          statements in a programming language which determines the
          sequence of execution of other instructions or statements (the
          control flow).
       
          In assembly language this typically consists of jumps and
          conditional jumps along with procedure call and return
          though some architectures include other constructs such as an
          instruction which skips the following instruction depending on
          some condition ({PDP?), various kinds of loop instructions
          (later Motorola 680x0) or conditional execution of all
          instructions (Advanced RISC Machine).
       
          Basic control structures (whatever their names in particular
          languages) include "if CONDITION then EXPRESSION else
          EXPRESSION", the switch statement, "while CONDITION do
          EXPRESSION", "gosub", the suspect "{goto" and the much-feared
          "{come from".  Other constructs handle errors and
          exceptions such as traps and interrupts.
       
          (1997-09-14)