Even then I would prefer an explicit comparison: if ((a = b) != NULL) ... I think Rust has a happy medium, where assignment evaluates to (), not the varia

Even then I would prefer an explicit comparison: if ((a = b) != NULL) ... I think Rust has a happy medium, where assignment evaluates to (), not the variable (important as this means you don't have an implicit borrow), but the idiom expressed here is usually replaced by: if let Some(thing) = fn_that_returns_option_thing() ...