What Is Branch?

Branching is when you give a computer a choice between two things: do this or do that. Branches are one of the basic building blocks of programming—they're instructions that tell your computer to go off and do something else while it's still doing other things. If you've ever played video games, you've seen branching everywhere. In particular, branching makes it possible for video games to have so much interactivity—it's why you can click on something and get an entirely different response than if you'd clicked on something else. Because branches let us decide what we want to do next, they make it possible for computers to be flexible and adaptable in ways that would never be possible without them. Branching, also known as "switching" or "branching flow control," is a computer programming technique that allows the execution of one set of instructions or code to be diverted to another location. It is typically accomplished by using a conditional statement. These are usually called flow control procedures in high-level languages and are built into the language. In assembly programming, branch instructions are built into a CPU. Branching is used when one particular part of code needs to be executed at different times depending on some condition. For example, if you have an if-then statement in your code and want to complete one piece of code when the situation is proper and another article when it is false, you could use branching. It's true. Branches are implemented both at the CPU level and in high-level languages. Many argue that the constituents in high-level languages are much more sophisticated than those in assembly programming. But here's the thing: both types of branching can be accessed through assembly programming. So if you want to use a CPU for your high-level language code but want to add some jump instructions to it, go ahead! Just make sure to watch out for any possible bugs!