Flow of control

In software, control flow (or flow of control) describes how execution progresses from one command to the next. In many contexts, such as machine code and an imperativeprogramming language, control progresses sequentially (to the command located immediately after the currently executing command) except when a command transfers control to another point – in which case the command is classified as a control flow command. Depending on context, other terms are used instead of command. For example, in machine code, the typical term is instruction and in an imperative language, the typical term is statement.