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A branch is an instruction in a
computer program A computer program is a sequence or set of instructions in a programming language for a computer to execute. Computer programs are one component of software, which also includes documentation and other intangible components. A computer program ...
that can cause a computer to begin executing a different instruction sequence and thus deviate from its default behavior of executing instructions in order. ''Branch'' (or ''branching'', ''branched'') may also refer to the act of switching execution to a different instruction sequence as a result of executing a branch instruction. Branch instructions are used to implement
control flow In computer science, control flow (or flow of control) is the order in which individual statements, instructions or function calls of an imperative program are executed or evaluated. The emphasis on explicit control flow distinguishes an ''imper ...
in program loops and conditionals (i.e., executing a particular sequence of instructions only if certain conditions are satisfied). A branch instruction can be either an ''unconditional branch'', which always results in branching, or a ''conditional branch'', which may or may not cause branching depending on some condition. Also, depending on how it specifies the address of the new instruction sequence (the "target" address), a branch instruction is generally classified as ''direct'', ''indirect'' or ''relative'', meaning that the instruction contains the target address, or it specifies where the target address is to be found (e.g., a register or memory location), or it specifies the difference between the current and target addresses.


Implementation

Branch instructions can alter the contents of the CPU's
Program Counter The program counter (PC), commonly called the instruction pointer (IP) in Intel x86 and Itanium microprocessors, and sometimes called the instruction address register (IAR), the instruction counter, or just part of the instruction sequencer, is ...
(or PC) (or Instruction Pointer on Intel microprocessors). The PC maintains the memory address of the next machine instruction to be fetched and executed. Therefore a branch, if executed, causes the CPU to execute code from a new memory address, changing the program logic according to the algorithm planned by the programmer. One type of machine level branch is the jump instruction. These may or may not result in the PC being loaded or modified with some new, different value other than what it ordinarily would have been (being incremented past the current instruction to point to the following, next instruction). Jumps typically have ''unconditional'' and ''conditional'' forms where the latter may be ''taken'' or ''not taken'' (the PC is modified or not) depending on some condition. The second type of machine level branch is the call instruction which is used to implement
subroutine In computer programming, a function or subroutine is a sequence of program instructions that performs a specific task, packaged as a unit. This unit can then be used in programs wherever that particular task should be performed. Functions may ...
s. Like jump instructions, calls may or may not modify the PC according to condition codes, however, additionally a return address is saved in a secure place in memory (usually in a memory resident data structure called a stack). Upon completion of the subroutine, this return address is restored to the PC, and so program execution resumes with the instruction following the call instruction. The third type of machine level branch is the return instruction. This "pops" a return address off the stack and loads it into the PC register, thus returning control to the calling routine. Return instructions may also be conditionally executed. This description pertains to ordinary practice; however, the machine programmer has considerable powers to manipulate the return address on the stack, and so redirect program execution in any number of different ways. Depending on the processor, jump and call instructions may alter the contents of the PC register in different ways. An absolute address may be loaded, or the current contents of the PC may have some value (or displacement) added or subtracted from its current value, making the destination address relative to the current place in the program. The source of the displacement value may vary, such as an immediate value embedded within the instruction, or the contents of a processor register or memory location, or the contents of some location added to an index value. The term ''branch'' can also be used when referring to programs in
high-level programming language In computer science, a high-level programming language is a programming language with strong Abstraction (computer science), abstraction from the details of the computer. In contrast to low-level programming languages, it may use natural language ...
s. In these branches usually take the form of conditional statements of various forms that encapsulate the instruction sequence that will be executed if the conditions are satisfied. Unconditional branch instructions such as
GOTO GoTo (goto, GOTO, GO TO or other case combinations, depending on the programming language) is a statement found in many computer programming languages. It performs a one-way transfer of control to another line of code; in contrast a function ca ...
are used to unconditionally jump to a different instruction sequence. If the algorithm requires a conditional branch, the GOTO (or GOSUB subroutine call) is preceded by an IF-THEN statement specifying the condition(s). All high level languages support algorithms that can re-use code as a
loop Loop or LOOP may refer to: Brands and enterprises * Loop (mobile), a Bulgarian virtual network operator and co-founder of Loop Live * Loop, clothing, a company founded by Carlos Vasquez in the 1990s and worn by Digable Planets * Loop Mobile, an ...
, a control structure that repeats a sequence of instructions until some condition is satisfied that causes the loop to terminate. Loops also qualify as branch instructions. At the machine level, loops are implemented as ordinary conditional jumps that redirect execution to repeating code. In CPUs with
flag register A status register, flag register, or condition code register (CCR) is a collection of status flag bits for a processor. Examples of such registers include FLAGS register in the x86 architecture, flags in the program status word (PSW) register in th ...
s, an earlier instruction sets a condition in the flag register. The earlier instruction may be arithmetic, or a logic instruction. It is often close to the branch, though not necessarily the instruction ''immediately'' before the branch. The stored condition is then used in a branch such as ''jump if overflow-flag set''. This temporary information is often stored in a flag register but may also be located elsewhere. A flag register design is simple in slower, simple computers. In fast computers a flag register can place a bottleneck on speed, because instructions that could otherwise operate in parallel (in several
execution unit In computer engineering, an execution unit (E-unit or EU) is a part of the central processing unit (CPU) that performs the operations and calculations as instructed by the computer program. It may have its own internal control sequence unit (not ...
s) need to set the flag bits in a particular sequence. There are also machines (or particular instructions) where the condition may be checked by the jump instruction itself, such as ''branch