Re: how to make a macro work as a single line if stmt without braces

On 21/09/2024 21:27, Andrey Tarasevich wrote:
 > Nope. There's absolutely no reason to overuse braces.
 >
 > And don't use "Egyptian" braces. The latter is actually an ill-begotten
 > attempt to remedy the damage from the former. Just stop overusing
 > braces, and there'll be no need for the remedy. Easy.
 >
 > This is the proper formatting style with braces
 >
 >    if (failed)
 >    {
 >      ...
 >    }
 >    else
 >    {
 >      ...
 >    }
 >
 > The vertical spacing introduced by the `{` line provides separation
 > between condition and the branch, which makes your code much more
 > readable. It is also a very good location for a comment, if you decide
 > to include one. Your future self with thank you.
I agree with that, but you realize you are kinda fighting "establishment" here. What you call "egyptian" braces is the so-called "TBS" which has infected the "default style" of approximately all programming languages that use braces. People use that almost religiously and the only rationale is to save space. Might have made sense 40 years ago when screen estate was a lot smaller, but these days, it's just madness. It's a lot less readable. The details are also odd: they seem to despise having an opening brace alone on a line, but they don't mind the closing brace to be.
This is even worse: } else {
starting a line with a closing symbol and ending it with an opening symbol, really?
As to overuse, my own style and guideline is this: if both 'then' and 'else' blocks are single statements, don't use braces.
If any of these blocks have more than one statement, use braces for both to make it look consistent. Mixed braces in if/else do look terrible IMHO (and the lack of consistency always hinders readablity), like this:
if (something)
     dothis();
else
{
     dothat();
     andalsothat();
}
Just avoid it.
I've seen that code style guideline in various environments, so this isn't just my own either.
Now the rationale for always using braces even for single statements at least makes some sense. Usually, it's for avoiding the case when a developer will add statements to a if or else block, forget to add braces to enclose it, and so that becomes a bug (which can't be easily trapped by compilers unless it's between a if and else. Some compilers/static analyzers, if you at least used proper indenting, will spot the indenting and lack of braces and will warn you about a potential mistake though.