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Why make it complicated? (lemmy.ml)
submitted 5 days ago by HiddenLayer555@lemmy.ml to c/programmerhumor@lemmy.ml
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[-] ThirdConsul@lemmy.ml 5 points 4 days ago

To be honest I always disliked variable declaration without value assignment, so to me both options suck. :)

[-] notarobot@lemm.ee 5 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

What about

Let ret: Number
If (someCondition) {
    <a lot of expensive calculations>
    ret = resultOfOperations
} else {
    <a lot of other different expensive operations>
    ret = resultOfOtherOperations
}
return ret

You can't declare ret inside the brackets

[-] ferric_carcinization@lemmy.ml 5 points 4 days ago

Rust would allow you to

let ret = if some_condition {
    <a lot of expensive calculations>
    result_of_operations
} else {
    <a lot of other different expensive calculations>
    result_of_other_operations
};

Now you don't have to declare it inside the blocks.

[-] barubary@infosec.exchange 5 points 4 days ago

Similarly, Perl lets you say

my $ret = do {    if (...) {        ...    } else {        ...    }};
[-] notarobot@lemm.ee -2 points 4 days ago

That's.. Disgusting

[-] ferric_carcinization@lemmy.ml 4 points 4 days ago

What's disgusting about it? The only thing I can think of is the implicit return, which felt a bit icky at first.

Also, as the if expression is an expression, you can call methods on it like so:

if 1 > 2 {
    3
} else {
    4
}.min(5)

(the above is still an expression, so it could be used, for example, as part of a condition for another if)

Of course, you can write horrible code in any language, but the ability to use blocks where expressions are expected can be great sometimes.

[-] Ephera@lemmy.ml 2 points 4 days ago

It's the same thing as ternary, just without the ? : syntax.

[-] ThirdConsul@lemmy.ml 4 points 4 days ago 
let ret = someCondition ? expensiveOperation() : otherOperation()

?

[-] notarobot@lemm.ee 2 points 4 days ago

Yeah. That works.

[-] racketlauncher831@lemmy.ml 2 points 4 days ago

What about you declare (then it gets allocated in stack) it and pass it to a different context for assignment?

[-] ThirdConsul@lemmy.ml 2 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Well, I don't know your use case well enough, but I guess you might have perfect reason for that behavior.

One thing that comes to my mind is the old Try in C#

bool parsedSuccessfully = int.TryParse("123", out int result);

But I guess more popular approach would be to use Error as Values, right?

E.g. something like this

Outcome<Exception, Int> result = int.TotallyNewParse("123");
[-] racketlauncher831@lemmy.ml 3 points 3 days ago 
char c;
scanf("%c", &c);
[-] ThirdConsul@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 days ago

Great example.

Wouldn't getchar() be more appropriate here? Last time I used C it was 16 years ago.

[-] racketlauncher831@lemmy.ml 3 points 3 days ago

Yes, and no, sir, you missed the point. The procedure here is to allocate then give away, not reading a fixed-length returned value.

Say you can only afford to have ten bytes in the stack. You allocate char s[10]; then give it to a library to parse something. Also telling it to abort if it's going to be longer than ten bytes, of course.

this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2025
93 points (86.6% liked)

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