conditional vs unconditional branches

[fault]

What's the difference between conditional and unconditional branches?! :huh: How about unconditional vs conditional jumps?

[Andareed]

I'm 99% sure that branches and jumps are the same (at least for x86 assembly they are). An unconditional jump/branch means "jump always". A conditional jump/branch only jumps on certain conditions. For example, you may have "jump if A is 0". If A is not 0, execution just continues after the next instruction.

[jonovate]

conditional is like Andareed said, only conditions, where 1 == 1, 69 != 96, etc.

Unconditional would be like a function call inside the code, where there is nothing to prevent the program from not doing the jump.

[Original_]

Unconditional - No matter what I am gonna do this

Conditional - I'll do this, if you satisfy the pre-conditions for it.

[fault]

So conditional is basically you're typical if/else type thing? And unconditional is just like some code inside a function since that will run anyway?? Have I got that right? Thanks.

[Andareed]

Yes. You can also look at uncoditional jump as being the same as 'goto' in C/Basic

[caustiK]

i believe branch instructions are limited in the range of code they can access, while jump statements are not

[fault]

  caustiK said:

i believe branch instructions are limited in the range of code they can access, while jump statements are not

Yup, I got it now. Cheers guys.

[bithub]

  Quote

i believe branch instructions are limited in the range of code they can access, while jump statements are not

I think that depends on the processer. That statement is correct for every processor I've worked on though :)