Unstructured programming is a programming paradigm where all code is contained in a single continuous block. This is contrary to structured programming, where programatic tasks can be split in to smaller sections known as functions or subroutines, that can be called whenever they are required. Unstructured programming languages have to rely on execution flow statements such as Goto, used in many languages to jump to a specified section of code.

Unstructured source code is notoriously difficult to read and debug, and so is discouraged in programming languages that support any kind of structure. However, unstructured programming is still needed in some scripting languages such as MS-DOS batch files, and for programming CPU intensive algorithms in C or Assembly language, where processing speed is more important than readability.

See also

• Structured programming (contrast)
• Programming paradigms