I realize it's not quite your point, but if you don't like repeating yourself, macros and "statement expressions" make it simple to extend languages to capture

I realize it's not quite your point, but if you don't like repeating yourself, macros and "statement expressions" make it simple to extend languages to capture "it" to a tmp variable and then reuse it: #include <stdlib.h> #include <stdio.h> #define dry(x, test, if_true, if_false) ({ \ typeof(x) _x = (x); \ (_x test) ? if_true(_x) : if_false(_x); \ }) #define abs(x) dry(x, < 0, -, ) int main(int argc, char **argv) { if (argc == 1) printf("usage: %s num [num]...", argv[0]); for (int i = 1; i < argc; i++) { char *string = argv[i]; int num = atoi(string); printf("string '%s', num %d, abs %d\n", string, num, abs(num)); } return 0; } $ gcc -std=gnu99 -Wall -Wextra -O3 -g dry.c -o dry $ dry 2 1 0 -1 -2 string '2', num 2, abs 2 string '1', num 1, abs 1 string '0', num 0, abs 0 string '-1', num -1, abs 1 string '-2', num -2, abs 2