Editing Spaghetti code (section)

== Examples ==
Here follows what would be considered a trivial example of spaghetti code in [[BASIC programming language|BASIC]]. The program prints each of the numbers 1 to 100 to the screen along with its square. Indentation is not used to differentiate the various actions performed by the code, and the program's <code>[[Goto|GOTO]]</code> statements create a reliance on [[line number]]s. The flow of execution from one area to another is harder to predict. Real-world occurrences of spaghetti code are more complex and can add greatly to a program's maintenance costs.

<syntaxhighlight lang="basic">
1 i=0
2 i=i+1
3 PRINT i;"squared=";i*i
4 IF i>=100 THEN GOTO 6
5 GOTO 2
6 PRINT "Program Completed."
7 END
</syntaxhighlight>

Here is the same code written in a [[structured programming]] style:

<syntaxhighlight lang="basic">
1 FOR i=1 TO 100
2     PRINT i;"squared=";i*i
3 NEXT i
4 PRINT "Program Completed."
5 END
</syntaxhighlight>

The program jumps from one area to another, but this jumping is formal and more easily predictable, because [[for loop]]s and [[Subroutine|functions]] provide [[control flow|flow control]] whereas the ''goto'' statement encourages arbitrary flow control. Though this example is small, real world programs are composed of many lines of code and are difficult to maintain when written in a spaghetti code fashion.

Here is another example of spaghetti code with embedded GOTO statements.
<syntaxhighlight lang="basic">
  INPUT "How many numbers should be sorted? "; T
  DIM n(T)
  FOR i = 1 TO T
    PRINT "NUMBER:"; i
    INPUT n(i)
  NEXT i
  'Calculations:
  C = T
E180:
  C = INT(C / 2)
  IF C = 0 THEN GOTO C330
  D = T - C
  E = 1
I220:
  f = E
F230:
  g = f + C
  IF n(f) > n(g) THEN SWAP n(f), n(g)
  f = f - C
  IF f > 0 THEN GOTO F230
  E = E + 1
  IF E > D THEN GOTO E180
  GOTO I220
C330:
  PRINT "The sorted list is"
  FOR i = 1 TO T
    PRINT n(i)
  NEXT i
</syntaxhighlight>