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Postings from July 2013
On 07/25/2013 02:19 AM, Nicholas Clark wrote:
> I don't think that using a comma operator in void context just to avoid
> needing braces is really worth it. It doesn't feel like idiomatic C.
I agree, and I'd like to put in a plug for using braces.
The coding standards where I $worked called for always using braces when
the 'then' clause was not on the same line as its 'if'. The reason was
bitter experience with maintenance safety. It's too easy for someone to
later come in and fail to notice the absence of braces, and turn this:
if (a)
b;
into
if (a)
c;
b;
Thus causing b to be executed unconditionally, contrary to the original
code. If you're lucky this will generate a compiler warning or error
(as happened to me on Saturday with the Perl core). If you're somewhat
less lucky, the regression tests will have adequate coverage and you'll
find this problem almost immediately. But if you're unlucky, this
regression won't be found until an angry customer and boss are breathing
down your neck. Under such pressure (or even without), code reading may
very easily fail to see what is the problem. Our eyes look at the
indentation, and not the lack of braces. This happened enough that we
banned the practice, and everybody got into the habit of always saying
if (a) {
b;
}
That habit has saved me from creating many bugs over the years.
I had thought that Perl coding standards forbid this
if (a) b; /* I thought this was not acceptable */
But I don't see a statement in the current perlhack about it. But I
don't see very many examples of it in the Perl core, so it appears to be
a defacto standard. The reason I know to avoid this construct is
because if you're using the debugger, you can't set a breakpoint on b
(at least not easily; if 'a' is evaluatable in the debugger, you can
emulate a breakpoint at 'b', if the consequent execution time slow-down
isn't too large). Maybe there are other reasons. I can see arguments
about it being easier to follow the logic.
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