Label (computer science)

A label in a programming language is a sequence of characters that identifies a location within source code.

Description

In most languages labels take the form of an identifier, often followed by a punctuation character (e.g., a colon).

In many high level programming languages the purpose of a label is to act as the destination of a GOTO statement.

In assembly language, labels can be used anywhere an address can (for example, as the operand of a JMP or MOV instruction).

Also in Pascal and its derived variations.

Some languages, such as Fortran and BASIC, support numeric labels.

Labels are also used to identify an entry point into a compiled sequence of statements (e.g., during debugging).