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authorJunio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>2014-04-30 21:26:23 (GMT)
committerJunio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>2014-05-02 20:44:46 (GMT)
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CodingGuidelines: on comparison
There are arguments for writing a conditional as "a < b" rather than "b > a", or vice versa. Let's give guidance on which we prefer. See http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/3903/focus=4126 for the original discussion. Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
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@@ -222,6 +222,33 @@ For C programs:
- Double negation is often harder to understand than no negation
at all.
+ - There are two schools of thought when it comes to comparison,
+ especially inside a loop. Some people prefer to have the less stable
+ value on the left hand side and the more stable value on the right hand
+ side, e.g. if you have a loop that counts variable i down to the
+ lower bound,
+
+ while (i > lower_bound) {
+ do something;
+ i--;
+ }
+
+ Other people prefer to have the textual order of values match the
+ actual order of values in their comparison, so that they can
+ mentally draw a number line from left to right and place these
+ values in order, i.e.
+
+ while (lower_bound < i) {
+ do something;
+ i--;
+ }
+
+ Both are valid, and we use both. However, the more "stable" the
+ stable side becomes, the more we tend to prefer the former
+ (comparison with a constant, "i > 0", is an extreme example).
+ Just do not mix styles in the same part of the code and mimic
+ existing styles in the neighbourhood.
+
- Some clever tricks, like using the !! operator with arithmetic
constructs, can be extremely confusing to others. Avoid them,
unless there is a compelling reason to use them.