Oracle Tips by Burleson

Improper Loop Termination

Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should do it.  When a loop is implemented in PL/SQL it should terminate in the designed manner.  The PL/SQL WHILE loops terminate when the test condition becomes false, and FOR loops terminate after the defined number of iterations.  The EXIT and EXIT WHEN  (condition = true) statements will exit all loops but should only be used on endless loops.  If you find that you need them on a FOR or WHILE loop, you have probably chosen the wrong loop structure to implement. 

The GOTO statement should never be used inside a loop to jump out of the loop.  Using the GOTO statement to terminate a loop will make your code harder to understand and more difficult to maintain.

The above book excerpt is from:

Easy Oracle PL/SQL Programming

Get Started Fast with Working PL/SQL Code Examples

ISBN 0-9759135-7-3   

John Garmany 

http://www.rampant-books.com/book_2005_1_easy_plsql.htm