Best way to format if statement with multiple conditions

formattingif-statementlanguage-agnostic

If you want to some code to execute based on two or more conditions which is the best way to format that if statement ?

first example:-

if(ConditionOne && ConditionTwo && ConditionThree)
{
   Code to execute
}

Second example:-

if(ConditionOne)
{
   if(ConditionTwo )
   {
     if(ConditionThree)
     {
       Code to execute
     }
   }
}

which is easiest to understand and read bearing in mind that each condition may be a long function name or something.

Best Solution

I prefer Option A

bool a, b, c;

if( a && b && c )
{
   //This is neat & readable
}

If you do have particularly long variables/method conditions you can just line break them

if( VeryLongConditionMethod(a) &&
    VeryLongConditionMethod(b) &&
    VeryLongConditionMethod(c))
{
   //This is still readable
}

If they're even more complicated, then I'd consider doing the condition methods separately outside the if statement

bool aa = FirstVeryLongConditionMethod(a) && SecondVeryLongConditionMethod(a);
bool bb = FirstVeryLongConditionMethod(b) && SecondVeryLongConditionMethod(b);
bool cc = FirstVeryLongConditionMethod(c) && SecondVeryLongConditionMethod(c);

if( aa && bb && cc)
{
   //This is again neat & readable
   //although you probably need to sanity check your method names ;)
}

IMHO The only reason for option 'B' would be if you have separate else functions to run for each condition.

e.g.

if( a )
{
    if( b )
    {
    }
    else
    {
        //Do Something Else B
    }
}
else
{
   //Do Something Else A
}

Related Solutions

Java – Best way to format multiple ‘or’ conditions in an if statement

I use this kind of pattern often. It's very compact:

// Define a constant in your class. Use a HashSet for performance
private static final Set<Integer> values = new HashSet<Integer>(Arrays.asList(12, 16, 19));

// In your method:
if (values.contains(x)) {
    ...
}

A HashSet is used here to give good look-up performance - even very large hash sets are able to execute contains() extremely quickly.

If performance is not important, you can code the gist of it into one line:

if (Arrays.asList(12, 16, 19).contains(x))

but know that it will create a new ArrayList every time it executes.

Python – Why does python use ‘else’ after for and while loops

A common construct is to run a loop until something is found and then to break out of the loop. The problem is that if I break out of the loop or the loop ends I need to determine which case happened. One method is to create a flag or store variable that will let me do a second test to see how the loop was exited.

For example assume that I need to search through a list and process each item until a flag item is found and then stop processing. If the flag item is missing then an exception needs to be raised.

Using the Python for...else construct you have

for i in mylist:
    if i == theflag:
        break
    process(i)
else:
    raise ValueError("List argument missing terminal flag.")

Compare this to a method that does not use this syntactic sugar:

flagfound = False
for i in mylist:
    if i == theflag:
        flagfound = True
        break
    process(i)

if not flagfound:
    raise ValueError("List argument missing terminal flag.")

In the first case the raise is bound tightly to the for loop it works with. In the second the binding is not as strong and errors may be introduced during maintenance.

Best Solution

Related Solutions

Java – Best way to format multiple ‘or’ conditions in an if statement

Python – Why does python use ‘else’ after for and while loops

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