On Saturday, October 28, 2017 at 9:54:30 PM UTC+3, bartc wrote:
> On 28/10/2017 19:42, Στέφανος Σωφρονίου wrote:
> > Greetings everyone.
> >
> > I have noticed that in many if conditions the following syntax is used:
> >
> > a) if (variable == NULL) { ... }
> > b) if (variable == -1) { ... }
> > c) if (variable != NULL) { ... }
> >
> > What I wanted to ask is, is there a particular reason for not choosing
> >
> > a) if (!variable) { ... } in place of if (variable == NULL) { ... },
> > b) if (-1 == variable) { ... } in place of if (variable == -1) { ... }, and
> > c) if (variable) { ... } in place of if (variable) { ... } ?
>
> (Presumably you meant variable != NULL)
Yep, I forgot to show the != NULL part; good catch!
>
> > Especially the (b) syntax is extremely dangerous to assign -1 to variable
> > in case of an accidental mistyping of equals sign; it had happened
> > countless times by now to to many of us that use various C-family languages.
> >
> > Is there a particular reason for using this specific coding style?
>
> Which one do you think is more readable?
>
> Which style would you prefer to read?
>
> Or do you prefer the more cryptic style in open source code?
>
>
> (The = vs. == issue is of one of numerous design flaws in C, but
> uglifying source code to get around it isn't the answer.)
I understand what you are saying and I don't have a styling preference, at
least in CPython's case.
I do believe though that if (!d) is a lot clearer than if (d == NULL) as it is
safer than falsely assigning NULL in d, by pure mistake.
But indeed it's a matter of taste.
I just wanted to see whether there is a certain favor around such coding style,
that's all.
>
>
>
> --
> bartc
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