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Special Case

Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved The Weird and The Wonderful
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  • L Lost User

    For the sake of learning here, why do some of the examples use the abs function in their answers. Why not just i++?

    P Offline
    P Offline
    patbob
    wrote on last edited by
    #25

    Why not use i++? Obfuscation. The original coder was trying to obfuscate it by using an if statement, so people are running with that theme :)

    We can program with only 1's, but if all you've got are zeros, you've got nothing.

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    • A ASkoro

      And for sqrt(-2)????

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      M Offline
      Member 4608898
      wrote on last edited by
      #26

      And for sqrt(-1/64) do we get indigestion tablets?

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      • T thoiness

        Rewritten:

        return (i == 0) ? 1 : i++;

        In division, specifically in the denominator, this code eliminates the divide by zero issue. I think the OP (original programmer) had good intentions.

        O Offline
        O Offline
        Oscar0
        wrote on last edited by
        #27

        Bug Alert. I think you meant perhaps: return (i == 0) ? 1 : ++i;

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        • A ASkoro

          And for sqrt(-2)????

          K Offline
          K Offline
          KP Lee
          wrote on last edited by
          #28

          ASkoro wrote:

          And for sqrt(-2)????

          Computers ignore complexity. Or is that irrationality? I'm almost sure that's a complex number. If that is true, what is an irrational number? I know they both exist, but can't definitively define them.

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          • S sergiogarcianinja

            I just tried your method, and my compiler is generating a error about a method must return a value, so I fixed it. There is a version without bugs, hope it helps:

            if (i < 0)
            return 1 - abs(i);
            else if (i == 0)
            return 1;
            else if (i > 0)
            return 1 + abs(i);

            K Offline
            K Offline
            KP Lee
            wrote on last edited by
            #29

            Sorry, I fail to see how you fixed it. Computers aren't very good at determining there is an unreachable path. Put an unconditional return 1 - abs(i) + abs(i); after all the if statements should fix it. (Especially if i is uint. Checking for negative numbers is really interesting in that case.)

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            • L Lost User

              For the sake of learning here, why do some of the examples use the abs function in their answers. Why not just i++?

              K Offline
              K Offline
              KP Lee
              wrote on last edited by
              #30

              MehGerbil wrote:

              Why not just i++?

              For one thing that would be the same as returning i. (Unless the i was passed with ref. Then you get two values for the price of one.)

              MehGerbil wrote:

              For the sake of learning here

              That's rich. Trying to learn better coding by studying poor code harder.

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              • K KP Lee

                MehGerbil wrote:

                Why not just i++?

                For one thing that would be the same as returning i. (Unless the i was passed with ref. Then you get two values for the price of one.)

                MehGerbil wrote:

                For the sake of learning here

                That's rich. Trying to learn better coding by studying poor code harder.

                L Offline
                L Offline
                Lost User
                wrote on last edited by
                #31

                The intent was to write: return i++;

                KP Lee wrote:

                That's rich. Trying to learn better coding by studying poor code harder.

                I think fixing bad code is a great way to learn, especially if you learn the "why" along the way.

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                • L Lost User

                  For the sake of learning here, why do some of the examples use the abs function in their answers. Why not just i++?

                  B Offline
                  B Offline
                  BobJanova
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #32

                  It should be 'return i + 1'. ++i is a wasteful update of the variable i, assuming it's local (there's some serious issues if it isn't anyway), and i++ is just wrong because it returns i (before the statement) and not i + 1.

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                  • B BobJanova

                    It should be 'return i + 1'. ++i is a wasteful update of the variable i, assuming it's local (there's some serious issues if it isn't anyway), and i++ is just wrong because it returns i (before the statement) and not i + 1.

                    L Offline
                    L Offline
                    Lost User
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #33

                    That was interesting. Why is it that ++i is less efficient then returning i + 1? Isn't a calculation made (total of i + 1) made in memory somewhere regardless?

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                    • R Rotted Frog

                      Just a quick one, but amused me when I saw it in code today.

                      if (i == 0)
                      return 1;
                      else
                      return i + 1;

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                      V Offline
                      Vitaly Tomilov
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #34

                      I'm not surprised, see it all the time. This happens as a result of changing the condition, i.e. the code was written for one condition, then the condition changed, and the code was updated without logical refactoring. Also, some developers like making code temporarily unreachable rather than commenting it out, i.e. putting the code into a block like:

                      if(false){...code...}

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                      • R Rotted Frog

                        Just a quick one, but amused me when I saw it in code today.

                        if (i == 0)
                        return 1;
                        else
                        return i + 1;

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                        A Offline
                        Albert Holguin
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #35

                        Developer took special math classes... :-D

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                        • L Lost User

                          That was interesting. Why is it that ++i is less efficient then returning i + 1? Isn't a calculation made (total of i + 1) made in memory somewhere regardless?

                          R Offline
                          R Offline
                          Rotted Frog
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #36

                          It's likely that compiler optimisations make it irrelevant in this case. But in the general case, she using ++i the value is copied into i after being calculated, then copied into the return variable. Using i+1 only copies it to the return variable (one less copy).

                          L 1 Reply Last reply
                          0
                          • R Rotted Frog

                            It's likely that compiler optimisations make it irrelevant in this case. But in the general case, she using ++i the value is copied into i after being calculated, then copied into the return variable. Using i+1 only copies it to the return variable (one less copy).

                            L Offline
                            L Offline
                            Lost User
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #37

                            Interesting. Thank you for the informative response.

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