Error-handling with goto is the style used in unix kernels, so your day job is in good company. Typically they do it without macro magic though. error = fallible_thingy(); if (error) goto end; is how all of FreeBSD is written.

For fresh projects that only care about clang&gcc though you can just go ahead and use the cleanup attribute to basically feel like you have destructors :)

Why don’t you just defer {} and use a labelled break?

Another alternative to goto is using a do/while(false) loop with break. Here’s a C++ example from an old program I have been hacking on.

    [[nodiscard]] static fts_result
    data_accept(server_ptr sh, int &data, file_null_ptr &d_fpin)
    {
            sockaddr_in from;
            socklen_t fromlen = sizeof(from);
            bool ok = true;
            do
            {
                    const int s = accept(data, to_sockaddr(from), &fromlen);
                    if (ok = s != -1; !ok)
                    {
                            serror(sh, "FTS: data accept");
                            break;
                    }
                    data = s;

                    // Open input stream...
                    d_fpin = fdopen(data, "r");
                    if (ok = d_fpin != nullptr; !ok)
                    {
                            serror(sh, "FTS: data fdopen");
                            break;
                    }
            } while (false);
            if (!ok)
            {
                    close(data);
                    data = -1;
                    return (fts_result::ERR_SYSTEM);
            }
            return (fts_result::OK);
    }