C++ – What’s the purpose of using braces (i.e. {}) for a single-line if or loop

ccoding-stylecurly-bracesdefensive-programming

I'm reading some lecture notes of my C++ lecturer and he wrote the following:

Use Indentation // OK

Never rely on operator precedence – Always use parentheses // OK

Always use a { } block – even for a single line // not OK, why ???

Const object on left side of comparison // OK

Use unsigned for variables that are >= 0 // nice trick

Set Pointer to NULL after deletion – Double delete protection // not bad

The 3rd technique is not clear to me: what would I gain by placing one line in
a { ... }?

For example, take this weird code:

int j = 0;
for (int i = 0 ; i < 100 ; ++i)
{
    if (i % 2 == 0)
    {
        j++;
    }
}

and replace it with:

int j = 0;
for (int i = 0 ; i < 100 ; ++i)
    if (i % 2 == 0)
        j++;

What's the benefit of using the 1st version?

Best Answer

Let's attempt to also modify i when we increment j:

int j = 0;
for (int i = 0 ; i < 100 ; ++i)
    if (i % 2 == 0)
        j++;
        i++;

Oh no! Coming from Python, this looks ok, but in fact it isn't, as it's equivalent to:

int j = 0;
for (int i = 0 ; i < 100 ; ++i)
    if (i % 2 == 0)
        j++;
i++;

Of course, this is a silly mistake, but one that even an experienced programmer could make.

Another very good reason is pointed out in ta.speot.is's answer.

A third one I can think of is nested if's:

if (cond1)
   if (cond2) 
      doSomething();

Now, assume you now want to doSomethingElse() when cond1 is not met (new feature). So:

if (cond1)
   if (cond2) 
      doSomething();
else
   doSomethingElse();

which is obviously wrong, since the else associates with the inner if.

Edit: Since this is getting some attention, I'll clarify my view. The question I was answering is:

What's the benefit of using the 1st version?

Which I have described. There are some benefits. But, IMO, "always" rules don't always apply. So I don't wholly support

Always use a { } block - even for a single line // not OK, why ???

I'm not saying always use a {} block. If it's a simple enough condition & behavior, don't. If you suspect someone might come in later & change your code to add functionality, do.

Related Solutions

C++ – What’s the rationale for null terminated strings

From the horse's mouth

None of BCPL, B, or C supports character data strongly in the language; each treats strings much like vectors of integers and supplements general rules by a few conventions. In both BCPL and B a string literal denotes the address of a static area initialized with the characters of the string, packed into cells. In BCPL, the first packed byte contains the number of characters in the string; in B, there is no count and strings are terminated by a special character, which B spelled *e. This change was made partially to avoid the limitation on the length of a string caused by holding the count in an 8- or 9-bit slot, and partly because maintaining the count seemed, in our experience, less convenient than using a terminator.

_{Dennis M Ritchie, Development of the C Language}

C++ – Iterate through a C++ Vector using a ‘for’ loop

The reason why you don't see such practice is quite subjective and cannot have a definite answer, because I have seen many of the code which uses your mentioned way rather than iterator style code.

Following can be reasons of people not considering vector.size() way of looping:

Being paranoid about calling size() every time in the loop condition. However either it's a non-issue or it can be trivially fixed
Preferring std::for_each() over the for loop itself
Later changing the container from std::vector to other one (e.g. map, list) will also demand the change of the looping mechanism, because not every container support size() style of looping

C++11 provides a good facility to move through the containers. That is called "range based for loop" (or "enhanced for loop" in Java).

With little code you can traverse through the full (mandatory!) std::vector:

vector<int> vi;
...
for(int i : vi) 
  cout << "i = " << i << endl;

Best Answer

Related Solutions

C++ – What’s the rationale for null terminated strings

C++ – Iterate through a C++ Vector using a ‘for’ loop

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