A question of indentation!

[Jason Hooper]

Nish - Native CPian wrote: In fact code that is not indented is an absolute pain to even look at. But then sometimes you get into absurd levels of indentation Try generating HTML tables with perl's CGI.pm. (Yes I'm using the MDE to edit perl files... this was before I learned vi) - Jason (SonorkID 100.611) In the beginning, teachers taught the 5 W's: who, what, where, when, why. Now it's just a big damn G

[Tomasz Sowinski]

I don't buy performance-related arguments, at least not in 100%. While there are the situations in which this could matter (thight loops etc), in my example you'd access disk. For sure this operation would be orders of magnitude slower than throwing/catching exceptions. The same applies to displaying anything on the screen or accepting user input. In short, the cost associated with exception handling would be totally invisible. Tomasz Sowinski -- http://www.shooltz.com

- It's for protection
- Protection from what? Zee Germans?

[Andreas Saurwein]

Jason Gerard wrote: That is the worst API I've ever heard of Try Windows ;) ERROR_MORE_DATA Well, actually you have the same kind of return values in almost any API - commonly you find this things in "evolved" API's where conditions changed but not the environment. Thus, the function returns a error which must be interpreted to find out that its actually just a information. Sometimes its just a misconception as for ERROR_MORE_DATA. Vote against software patents in europe

[Tomasz Sowinski]

What about this? :)

switch (1)
{
case 1: if (!call1()) break;
case 2: if (!call2()) break;
case 3: if (!call3()) break;
...
}

Tomasz Sowinski -- http://www.shooltz.com

- It's for protection
- Protection from what? Zee Germans?

[Nish Nishant]

Eddie Velasquez wrote: but OOP you must. Yeah. I am gonna OOP more from now on ... Nish :-)

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Regards, Nish Native CPian. Born and brought up on CP. With the CP blood in him.

[Nish Nishant]

Thanks Chris M. PeterChen had already suggested this to me. Though he used a 0 instead of a false as you did :-) By the way your do while brace-poitioning is ugly Dont use do { like a java guy. Put it as do { like a C++ guy Nish

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Regards, Nish Native CPian. Born and brought up on CP. With the CP blood in him.

[Nish Nishant]

That was indeed innovative Tomasz :-) Nish

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Regards, Nish Native CPian. Born and brought up on CP. With the CP blood in him.

[Eddie Velasquez]

Tomasz Sowinski wrote: While there are the situations in which this could matter (thight loops etc), in my example you'd access disk As everything in software development there's no such thing as an absolute certainty. That's why I used the word "usually". And I still believe it's a bad idea to getting used to use exceptions for other things besides error handling. Tomasz Sowinski wrote: In short, the cost associated with exception handling would be totally invisible. Remember the cost of exceptions isn't only related to speed, size matters too! (Doesn't matter what some women say :-O ;))

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Eddie Velasquez: A Squeezed Devil
Checkout General Guidelines for C# Class Implementation

[Nish Nishant]

Tomasz Sowinski wrote: Post more code Tomasz Sowinski said that on the Lounge ;-) ;-) Nish

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Regards, Nish Native CPian. Born and brought up on CP. With the CP blood in him.

[Nish Nishant]

[James Pullicino] wrote: Nish, don't get discouraged. The prime motivation for most of us to learn OOP was because of these things. Don't shy away from OOP. In a few months you will be the one telling others to wrap their functions into objects. Thanks James! :-) Nish

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Regards, Nish Native CPian. Born and brought up on CP. With the CP blood in him.

[Nish Nishant]

Navin wrote: If pStr is NULL, the first condition fails, and the second condition (strlen) won't even be evaluated. PGP calls don't return true/false/1/0. They return a PGPError type. We gotta call IsPGPError() on the return value to figure out if it's an error. On some occasions an error is permissible. Like if we have a call that works only with DSS keys, then if it fails for an RSA key it's not really an error. Nish

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Regards, Nish Native CPian. Born and brought up on CP. With the CP blood in him.

[Jorgen Sigvardsson]

Some people use goto :~ for this kind of stuff. Basically it works something like this:

if(someCondition) {
   // acquire some resources...
   // some error is detected - bail out
   goto cleanup\_1;
}

if(someOtherCondition) {
   // acquire some more resources...
   // some error is detected - bail out
   goto cleanup\_2;
} 

// perhaps some more code

return true; // for success

cleanup_2:
// cleanup resources acquired up to "goto cleanup_2"
cleanup_1:
// cleanup resources acquired up to "goto cleanup_1"
return false; // for failure

This is the only instance where I'm prepared to defend the usage of goto's. It's fast (no exception handling overhead), it's not spaghetti code and it's quite readable! Sonorked as well: 100.13197 jorgen FreeBSD is sexy.

[Tomasz Sowinski]

Eddie Velasquez wrote: Remember the cost of exceptions isn't only related to speed, size matters too! So how much bigger my program will be if I replace multiple nested ifs with try/throw/catch? Assuming that you're using exceptions to catch 'real' errors the difference is zero. Tomasz Sowinski -- http://www.shooltz.com

- It's for protection
- Protection from what? Zee Germans?

[Jorgen Sigvardsson]

Nish - Native CPian wrote: I like your do while(0) idea do { } while(0) is a really cool technique, especially with macros. It is easy to mistype macros in such ways that they look syntactically correct, but expanded they wreak havoc. Consider this:

#define RET_IF_FAIL(x) if(FAILED(x)) return

if(someCondition)
RET_IF_FAIL(m_pObject->DoTheChokaChoka());
else
MessageBox(NULL, "someCondition not met", "Status report", MB_OK);

The else will be connected to your "hidden if" inside RET_IF_FAIL which is clearly not the intent. The expanded code will look like:

if(someCondition)
if(FAILED(m_pObject->DoTheChokaChoka())) return;
else
MessageBox(NULL, "someCondition not met", "Status report", MB_OK);

Scary stuff! I've had my fair share of these bloody mistakes! Solution? Keep on reading:

#define RET_IF_FAIL(x) do { if(FAILED(hr)) return; } while(0)
if(someCondition)
RET_IF_FAIL(pObject->DoTheChokaChoka());
else
MessageBox(NULL, "someCondition not met", "Status report", MB_OK);

This is much better since the "hidden if" is wrapped inside a block which has an associated language construct - the do while. Thus the if nor the block cannot be "misconnected". The expanded code will be:

if(someCondition)
do { if(FAILED(m_pObject->DoTheChokaChoka())) return; } while(0);
else
MessageBox(NULL, "someCondition not met", "Status report", MB_OK);

And the best part is that a do { } while(0) is totally costless! The compiler will optimize away the loop expression/jump so that it will not add any extra garbage to your code. Sonorked as well: 100.13197 jorgen FreeBSD is sexy.

[Eddie Velasquez]

Tomasz Sowinski wrote: So how much bigger my program will be if I replace multiple nested ifs with try/throw/catch? Assuming that you're using exceptions to catch 'real' errors the difference is zero. It depends. A lot of factors come into play, obvious ones: if you define variables with ctors and dtors between the ifs and if the code is templated. As I said before: it all depends on the particular case. In some scenarios even the use of exceptions for error reporting is overkill. For most developers getting into the habit of misusing exceptions (or templates or whatever relatively obscure language feature) makes them produce bad code. I'm not saying that you or me will produce buggy or bad code (we don't write buggy code, do we? ;) ) But the average developer is so lame that (s)he acts like a robot without really thinking about the code (s)he is writing and the consecuences of the design decisions made.

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Eddie Velasquez: A Squeezed Devil
Checkout General Guidelines for C# Class Implementation

[Tomasz Sowinski]

Eddie Velasquez wrote: In some scenarios even the use of exceptions for error reporting is overkill. Hard real time systems controlling nuclear reactors, yes. But not for majority of non-embedded stuff. Anyway, Standard C++ uses exceptions for basic functionality, like reporting failures from new operator. Your code already has exception frames set. Eddie Velasquez wrote: But the average developer is so lame that (s)he acts like a robot without really thinking about the code (s)he is writing and the consecuences of the design decisions made. So it's better to have dozen of nested ifs and 'manual' cleanup code? C'mon :) Tomasz Sowinski -- http://www.shooltz.com

- It's for protection
- Protection from what? Zee Germans?

[Eddie Velasquez]

Tomasz Sowinski wrote: Hard real time systems controlling nuclear reactors, yes. No need for exageration. Tomasz Sowinski wrote: Standard C++ uses exceptions for basic functionality, like reporting failures from new operator. Not Visual Studio. At least version 6.0 Tomasz Sowinski wrote: So it's better to have dozen of nested ifs and 'manual' cleanup code? C'mon More exageration. When a function is overly complex you split it in managable units. Destructors were invented for cleanup. Why did you quote the word 'manual'? I don't recall mentioning manual cleanup code. :confused: I've never advocated writing spagetti code or not using exceptions or templates or whatever in my code. Just use 'em where they should be used and try hard not to grow bad habits.

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Eddie Velasquez: A Squeezed Devil
Checkout General Guidelines for C# Class Implementation

[Ravi Bhavnani]

How about:

if (call1() && call2() && call3() &&
call4() && call5() && call6()) {
// Success
} else {
// Error
}

/ravi "There is always one more bug..." http://www.ravib.com ravib@ravib.com

[Tomasz Sowinski]

Eddie Velasquez wrote: Not Visual Studio. At least version 6.0 What's the importance of this? :-D Eddie Velasquez wrote: More exageration. Just a little bit :) Anyway, we're not going to agree. Let's finish this discussion. Tomasz Sowinski -- http://www.shooltz.com

- It's for protection
- Protection from what? Zee Germans?

[Eddie Velasquez]

Tomasz Sowinski wrote: What's the importance of this? Well, a lot of developers use it as it's main compiler? And the some big chunks of the standard aren't correctly handled by VC6 (and VC7). And that you implied (or so I interpreted) that because standard C++ uses exceptions all over the place then everybody is using exceptions unknowingly, so the exception overhead has already been payed for. And I said that VC6 doesn't conform very well so the exception overhead isn't automatically included. Tomasz Sowinski wrote: Anyway, we're not going to agree. Let's finish this discussion. That's ok with me.

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Eddie Velasquez: A Squeezed Devil
Checkout General Guidelines for C# Class Implementation