this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2023
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Which order do you prefer for null testing ternary expressions? (programming.dev)
submitted 1 year ago by JackbyDev@programming.dev to c/java@programming.dev
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Which do you prefer of these two? The goal is the same. If bar is null then make foo null and avoid the exception. In other languages there is the ?. operator to help with this.

foo = bar == null ? null : bar.baz();
foo = bar != null ? bar.baz() : null;

I ask because I feel like the "English" of the first example is easier to read and has less negations so it is more straightforward, but the second one has the meat of the expression (bar.baz()) more prominently.

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[–] triarius@programming.dev 2 points 1 year ago

I think the meat being more prominent in the second one is subjective. If I were writing a method to do something like this with ifs, I would handle the edge cases first and return early from them. The meat would be what's left after the edge cases. So this lines up with the first form.