3 ms·

Other people are complaining about the 80 character line limit, but personally, I'm shocked and dismayed by the preference for no braces on `if` statements with

Other people are complaining about the 80 character line limit, but personally, I'm shocked and dismayed by the preference for no braces on `if` statements with single line blocks. It is so easy to accidentally add a line to what looks like an `if` block (but isn't since there are no braces), and then you have a bug that is visually very difficult to spot. I'm pretty strongly against this rule!

farresito 10y ago
You can always use the flag -Wmisleading-indentation. I'm not sure how well it works, though.
technion 10y ago
I found it interesting that systemd actually requires this behaviour: https://github.com/systemd/systemd/blob/master/CODING_STYLE#L87 https://github.com/systemd/systemd/blob/master/CODING_STYLE#... I once found a particularly confusing use of this style here: https://github.com/erlang/otp/blob/master/erts/epmd/src/epmd_cli.c#L148 https://github.com/erlang/otp/blob/master/erts/epmd/src/epmd...
Light2Yellow 10y ago
I cannot agree more. I'm trying to enforce the braces as much as possible because one always adds a statement here and there and obviously forgets to put them (for debugging purposes for example). This is a very big drawback, as Linux is positioning itself as a programmer-friendly and "simplistic" C project.
detrino 10y ago
If you enforce the use of clang-format then this is not an issue as it will indent the code correctly.
beagle3 10y ago
> It is so easy to accidentally add a line to what looks like an `if` block But it is also so easy to catch that automatically (and in fact, gcc and clang will flag this as an error for you with the right incantation, and refuse to compile), that it is stupid to leave it to 50 different committers all avoiding accidents.
- anarazel 10y ago
  Be careful when using macros however: https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=80076 https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=80076
byllgrim 10y ago
I don't get what "what looks like an `if` block" is. In a no-brace if, the statement that follows is indented. The next line after that is not indented. So the indented statement obviously belong to the if.
- nolemurs 10y ago
  The issue that comes up is when you go to add a line to that 'block' it's easy not to notice that it's not actually a block, just a single statement. Then you add another indented line, and now you've got something that looks a lot like a block, but isn't at all! Of course, as others have pointed out, with some sort of reasonable linting setup or with compiler warnings, you'll probably catch the bug (unless macros are involved), but even so, I feel having something that looks like a block but isn't, adds cognitive load for little benefit.
- IE6 10y ago
  This works well in languages where whitespace matters

farresito 10y ago

You can always use the flag -Wmisleading-indentation. I'm not sure how well it works, though.

technion 10y ago

I found it interesting that systemd actually requires this behaviour: https://github.com/systemd/systemd/blob/master/CODING_STYLE#L87 https://github.com/systemd/systemd/blob/master/CODING_STYLE#... I once found a particularly confusing use of this style here: https://github.com/erlang/otp/blob/master/erts/epmd/src/epmd_cli.c#L148 https://github.com/erlang/otp/blob/master/erts/epmd/src/epmd...

Light2Yellow 10y ago

I cannot agree more. I'm trying to enforce the braces as much as possible because one always adds a statement here and there and obviously forgets to put them (for debugging purposes for example). This is a very big drawback, as Linux is positioning itself as a programmer-friendly and "simplistic" C project.

detrino 10y ago

If you enforce the use of clang-format then this is not an issue as it will indent the code correctly.

beagle3 10y ago

> It is so easy to accidentally add a line to what looks like an `if` block But it is also so easy to catch that automatically (and in fact, gcc and clang will flag this as an error for you with the right incantation, and refuse to compile), that it is stupid to leave it to 50 different committers all avoiding accidents.

anarazel 10y ago
Be careful when using macros however: https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=80076 https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=80076

byllgrim 10y ago

I don't get what "what looks like an `if` block" is. In a no-brace if, the statement that follows is indented. The next line after that is not indented. So the indented statement obviously belong to the if.

nolemurs 10y ago
The issue that comes up is when you go to add a line to that 'block' it's easy not to notice that it's not actually a block, just a single statement. Then you add another indented line, and now you've got something that looks a lot like a block, but isn't at all! Of course, as others have pointed out, with some sort of reasonable linting setup or with compiler warnings, you'll probably catch the bug (unless macros are involved), but even so, I feel having something that looks like a block but isn't, adds cognitive load for little benefit.
IE6 10y ago
This works well in languages where whitespace matters