control flow
flow of control

    (Or "flow of control") The sequence of
   execution of the instructions in a program.  Control
   flow is linear, executing the instructions in the order they
   were written, unless it is changed at run time by control
   structures such as if statements, loops or goto
   statements).  These high-level language statements are
   translated by the compiler or interpreter into machine
   instructions, most commonly conditional branch
   instructions.

   Interrupts and exception handling also change the sequence
   of execution of instructions but are not part of normal
   control flow.

   Not to be confused with "flow control".

   (2017-07-30)