Switch boolean.... (reinventing if, unnecessarily)

[Rob Grainger]

Came across this kind of code today...

void EnableFromValue(bool enabled)
{
switch (enabled) {
case true:
FirstControl.Enabled = true;
SecondControl.Enabled = true;
...
break;
case false:
FirstControl.Enabled = false;
SecondControl.Enabled = false;
...
break;
}
}

I'm sure there must be a better way ;-)

"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough." Alan Kay.

[Jeremy Falcon]

I voted this a 5 because it was funny, but I could see a valid reason for that... if they wanted to encapsulate the logic of which controls were affected into a single resource I could see me doing that. Especially if it's called in more than one area.

Jeremy Falcon

[ZurdoDev]

This happens to me sometimes, until I get a few lines into and realize that there is a much simpler way. :doh:

There are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.

[Silvabolt]

So better way is this?

FirstControl.Enabled = enabled;
SecondControl.Enabled = enabled;

or better yet, MVVM would help if applicable to the app.

[Rob Grainger]

That's the gist of it yep. This is in an MVVM app, using a framework I architected. Sadly, one of the dev's has a habit of naming View Model fields too literally after the thing in the View, so it still ends up looking like code manipulating the view directly (and at the other extreme, a hell of a lot of business logic has polluted the view model). So, while the controls may not be called "FirstControl" etc., its really not that far off - properties with names like "CustomerListBoxSelectedCustomer". I try to clear up as much as I can as I work with stuff, but it seems some people just don't want to learn to work with architecture.

"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough." Alan Kay.

[phil o]

At least, his casing is ok.

while (true) {
continue;
}

[kmoorevs]

Thanks for posting! After two weeks without a new thread, I was starting to think that we are all working on perfect code! BTW, the example is perfect for getting your LOC up! :laugh:

"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse

[DJ van Wyk]

Someone needs to sit down with the guy and give him some 'help' to understand decent coding practices. Keep a hammer ready ...

My plan is to live forever ... so far so good

[Sander Rossel]

You aren't working with my previous employer, are you? :laugh:

Visit my blog at Sander's bits - Writing the code you need. Or read my articles at my CodeProject profile.

Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability. — Edsger W. Dijkstra

Regards, Sander

[Freak30]

I see a reason for the function but not for the switch statement. Except if you are paid by lines of code of course. :-D

The good thing about pessimism is, that you are always either right or pleasently surprised.

[Simon ORiordan from UK]

The advantage of a switch is that it bails as soon as a test passes, thus reducing conditional branching. Here you could use an if else.

[ScottM1]

Or take it out altogether as it's setting 2 Booleans.

[Lost User]

In that case it has the same advantage as the "if" would have; but if that is an important 'optimization', then you already have a bigger problem :)

Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss: If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^][](X-Clacks-Overhead: GNU Terry Pratchett)

[mbb01]

The only reason I could think for writing or keeping the code this way would be if enabled became an enumerated type and had more than 2 states.

[Simon ORiordan from UK]

In my experience Microsoft is pretty much immune to optimisation. You can reduce branching by one or two orders of magnitude and the crappy performance just doesn't budge. :zzz:

[Daniel Pfeffer]

In that case - create it as an enumerated type, with two values. You may then expand the enumeration without rewriting the existing code.

If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack. --Winston Churchill

[Lost User]

Probably because it is a micro-optimization; you won't notice much difference if it merely saves you the toggeling of a boolean.

Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss: If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^][](X-Clacks-Overhead: GNU Terry Pratchett)

[Simon ORiordan from UK]

Ha! It was actually an image processing filter mask which used pointer arithmetic. I invented something I called a Summation Threshold Filter which should have been ten times quicker than a Median filter. Let's just say that this was not apparent. :laugh:

[Scott Corbett]

Umm...that's not true. A switch will continue to fall through until you get to a break statement or the end of the switch (i.e. the default case.) On the other hand, if/else statements do bail as soon as the first passing conditional is found and the associated code block is executed.

Scott E. Corbett

[Member 9908362]

FirstControl.Enabled = !FirstControl.Enabled;
SecondControl.Enabled = !SecondControl.Enabled;