Re: Why is LEAVE bad? (was: Cycle Processing vs. Doing it my way)

[James Rich <james@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 6 Dec 2001, Buck Calabro wrote:

> >And what is wrong with LEAVE? It hardly
>
> >From a readability point of view, having multiple exit points means that you
> must visually scan every line of code in the routine to see where and when
> it can pop out.  This is in contrast to a routine that sets a return code
> and ONLY leaves from the bottom.  You don't need to scan the entire routine
> to see where you come out because there's only one exit point.

And the only problem with setting a return code and exiting at the bottom
is that you have to scan every line of code to be sure you don't
accidentally change the return code before returning.  Consider:

if (error condition)
        return(error)
else
        return(success)
endif

vs.

if (error condition)
        eval errcode=error
else
        eval errcode=success
endif
return errcode

James Rich
james@eaerich.com