and executed. Therefore, a branch, if executed, causes the CPU to execute code from a new memory address, changing the program logic according to the algorithm planned by the programmer.

One type of machine level branch is the jump instruction. These may or may not result in the PC being loaded or modified with some new, different value other than what it ordinarily would have been (being incremented past the current instruction to point to the following, next instruction). Jumps typically have unconditional and conditional forms