History
Use of branch tables and other raw data encoding was common in the early days of computing when memory was expensive, CPUs were slower and compact data representation and efficient choice of alternatives were important. Nowadays, they are commonly still used in:
- embedded programming
- operating system development. In many operating systems, both system calls and library functions may be referenced by an integer index into a branch table.
- some computer architectures such as IBM/360, use branch tables for dispatching interrupts
Read more about this topic: Branch Table
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