for those of you purists that don't like break, continue and goto

honey the codewitch

what's cool about that code though? It's directly translatable from visual graphs of the state objects it represents. I use graphviz to visualize them, and you can see right in the graph where the code matches up. It's beautiful - a 1:1 translation. So the code actually is human readable, you just need the map (the visual graph) for it.

When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.

Jorgen Andersson

I've seen MS themselves doing it. Sometimes when external code that you don't have control over lacks certain functionality, it might be your only choice. (been there, done that. X| )

Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello

honey the codewitch

right? that's why i *never* throw! kidding! but in seriousness I take great pains to prevent the users of my code from having to catch exceptions on failure if they don't want them. Like I'll provide TryXXXX to complement XXXX Pck: Code Roundup and Quick Start Guide[^] In PCK I have an elaborate error handling system whereby it finds errors and continues processing only (optionally) throwing an exception at the end with ALL the errors it encountered. Otherwise they're reported as "messages" with different severity/errorlevels probably the most elaborate exception handling i've had to do in managed code.

When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.

Sander Rossel

Depending on the length of the array, just let it loop :D I rarely use break or continue (break slightly more often, but probably only a handful in my entire career). I've never used goto, except to mock you I think :D I'd use FirstOrDefault here (which probably uses a break, I don't know). This kind of functionality is embedded in .NET, so why would I write my own? But if I had to pick, I'd choose the break, which far more clearly communicates intent than i=arr.Length;.

honey the codewitch wrote:

} // braces copyright Sander Rossel

So proud of my honeycode the witch :D

Best, Sander sanderrossel.com Continuous Integration, Delivery, and Deployment arrgh.js - Bringing LINQ to JavaScript Object-Oriented Programming in C# Succinctly

honey the codewitch

if code is hard to write, it should be hard to read. :laugh: i'm a sucker for symmetry.

When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.

Lost User

I have even encountered this in pseudocode, where the author could easily have added a `break` to his made-up exposition-purposes-only language but chose a more obfuscated way instead.

honey the codewitch

right, but in the OP i limited i to the loop scope, but yeah.

When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.

Night Fox Localhost

I prefer break statements. It is not suitable for big projects it might be confusing. I try my level best to write clean code!

Gary R Wheeler

Because the second fragment duplicates knowledge of the loop's termination condition. You have to remember to adjust it in two places. The first fragment is therefore more robust.

Software Zen: delete this;

honey the codewitch

yep. although there are cases where I'll modify i inside the loop for other reasons. Like if I have to add or remove items while enumerating (it happens with complicated algos)

When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.

Lost User

Yours is BS because it will execute everything after the if.

honey the codewitch

It was sample code. Normally you'd account for that when you put actual code in there, but without putting anything in there, it's not for me to know where the actual break should happen. However, it was sort of written with the idea that it would follow the main loop logic, kind of like the break example would. Of course the control flow is slightly different, but it's not irreconcilably different. if you need something to go after the conditional check, you'd wrap whatever went after the break in the one example in an else block instead.

When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.

Lost User

Yeas it the simpliest possible 5 lines code. In real life you would probably have another couple of hundreds lines of similar mess entagled there, with some poor soul wondering why is this piece of crap executing when it was not supposed to.

honey the codewitch

:laugh: it's funny cuz it's true. For the record, I'm not endorsing the method i described, I'm simply being facetious about it. I think it's silly. A break statement is much clearer, which was kind of the point of my OP. Sometimes you need break. Or a continue. Or even a goto (which i can give a solid use case for - in this case making the code MORE readable)

When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.

Lost User

Alright, here a piece of advice: never exit conditionally a for cycle. if you need to do that, use while or do until.

honey the codewitch

i think it depends on the situation for example

public int IndexOf(T item)
{
var ic = Count;
var i = 0;
for(;i

That's very clear even without comments

When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.

Lost User

i=-1 do i++ until Equals(item,this[i]) return i

honey the codewitch

i mean yeah. That's a little less clear to me though. I avoid do loops usually because the conditional can get confusing if you're used to regular for loops. It takes me a second to work out what's going on, like when exactly the condition exits. It's not big deal, it's just my preference. I think my code is clearer.

When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.

Lost User

It is simpler and I actually use pretty much exactly the same code when it is that simple. When you have more than a page of lines within that loop a sudden exit is not what I would do. And a sudden conditional exit with break or return might be even ok. Putting the i to the max and then exit in that manner is something I would never do.

honey the codewitch

well to each their own. probably it also has to do with my C++ background which influences a lot of my code. Not that C++ has different flow constructs, it's just that a) i learned these habits a long time ago and the industry changes b) C++ development is a different animal, and control flow is all over the place generally and for loops are used for almost everything except while(true) although some people go for(;;). It's not uncommon even to do stuff like for(current=firstNode;null!=current;current=current.nextNode) if(current->key==key) break; to traverse a linked list for example.

When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.