How do you order your functions?

Many linters complain that functionA cannot be declared on bottom of functionB when this is the case:

function first(){
  second()
}

function second(){
  // Whatever
}

This rule will warn when it encounters a reference to an identifier that has not yet been declared.

Rule of Eslint: https://eslint.org/docs/rules/no-use-before-define

So, we will change it to:

function second(){
  // Whatever
}

function first(){
  second()
}

And I've been following this rule in my projects. But I always wonder, if it really matters that much... Since JavaScript seems to handle function declarations well even if they're not in the right order.

And the truth is, we're used to reading from up to down. And for me to do this makes it much more understandable:

function first(){
  second()
  third()
}

function second(){
  fourth()
}

function third(){
  // Whatever
}

function fourth(){
  // Whatever
}

How do you sort the functions? I'd like to hear about this.

Comments

[Konstantin Klima]

Uncle Bob says we should order our functions by abstraction level and I've found that I like that approach best, as the code reads like a book.

function doSomething() {
    readInput()
    writeOutput()
}

function readInput() { 
   lowLevelImplementation()
}

function writeOutput() {}

function lowLevelImplementation() {
    ...
}

[Pacharapol Withayasakpunt]

About Uncle Bob, it seems that he is quite famous -- duckduckgo.com/?q=Uncle+Bob (the search engine suggested it correctly, without any programming-related keywords)

[Konstantin Klima]

He is considered THE authority on clean code and best practices by a lot of developers and computer scientists and his books constantly appear on must-read lists for developers.
AFAIK, he is the one who originally put together the SOLID principle rules and is one of the creators of agile development.
I also love his writing style, very enjoyable to read ^^

[𒎏Wii 🏳️‍⚧️]

Yes, he even wrote one of the things in "97 Things Every Programmer Should KNow", which is probably the book title I throw around by far the most (It really is a gold mine though)

[Deepak Vishwakarma]

I really like what is suggested . It's one of the key concepts of functional programming too.

[Etienne Burdet]

This is what suits the most to. It's much easier to read lower-order functions once you know where they will be called, while most of the time it's fairly easy to infer what they do by their name.

[Aral Roca]

Yep! I like it. This is clear to read

[Ben Halpern]

This is how I do things

[nilia1972]

Yes, it is clear and simple.

[Helder Burato Berto]

I always declare first and call then later, like the following:

function second() {}

function first() {
  second();
}

Considering the second is a dependency from first, personally I think it's more readable.

[Adil]

There's something called as Stepdown rule when it comes to writing functions, here's an example:
dzone.com/articles/the-stepdown-rule
This is also suggested by uncle Bob in the clean code handbook.

[Pacharapol Withayasakpunt]

But, does it even possible for some languages that have functions are first class citizen, such as Python?

I mean, class methods?, no problem. JavaScript with function keyword?, no problem. But what about the others?

[Galuh Utama]

Python, yes. C/C++, yes (you declare the functions first in header). Bash, yes.

[Pacharapol Withayasakpunt]

Python?

This does not work. (If you put if __name__ == '__main__': at the bottom, it will work, though.)

But this does work in JavaScript. Don't know whether I should do it, though.

makeBreakfast()

def makeBreakfast():
  addEggs()
  cook()
  serve()


def addEggs():
  print("""
  fridge
    .getEggs()
    .forEach(egg -> fryingPan.add(egg.open());
  """)

def cook():
  print("""
  fryingPan.mixContents();
    fryingPan.add(salt.getABit());
    fryingPan.mixContents();
  """)

def serve():
  print("""
  wife.give(fryingPan.getContents(20, PERCENT));
    self.give(fryingPan.getContents(80, PERCENT)); // huehuehue
  """)

[Galuh Utama]

Well that's true.

if __name__

must be written on the bottom. However here's I always do it in python:

#!/usr/bin/env python

def main():
    foo()

def foo():
    print("foo")
    hello()

def hello():
    print("Hello, world!")

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

Ordering functions from the highest abstraction to lower works this way.

[Pacharapol Withayasakpunt]

It is always nice to see a runnable code, and if possible, IRL open source projects. Thanks.

And I also want to say, this also works regardless of being outer scoped.

#!/usr/bin/env python

def foo():
    print("foo")
    hello()

def hello():
    print("Hello, world!")

if __name__ == "__main__":
    foo()

• I think main() has no real meaning. But if __name__ == "__main__": as well as anything in __main__.py do. main() may help in unittesting, though.
• About #!/usr/bin/env python, at least for me, it is rare to make Python only one-file. Often, there are modules, probably with top-level app.py. So, I only put shebang once.

[Galuh Utama]

Yes, main() is just common to see. By no means it has to be called main().

Here's an example from docker-compose:

The entry point is here

It doesn't even use the usual if __name__ ...

from compose.cli.main import main

main()

which calls this module

Check out the main() function there. It's defined at the top of the file and it calls lower level functions there.

Regarding the hash bang, yes I just do it out of habit. I often use python to replace bash to write small command line tools, which in my case, often in single files.

[Adam Nathaniel Davis]

I always order them like this:

function first(){
  second()
  third()
}

function fourth(){
  // Whatever
}

function second(){
  fourth()
}

function third(){
  // Whatever
}

In other words, I order them alphabetically. Granted, it looks a little strange in this example, because these function names seem to imply a specific order. But that's not the case in "real" code.

I hate having to scroll up-then-down-then-up again as I search for a given function. So I put everything in alphabetical order. I even wrote a whole article about this a little while back:

dev.to/bytebodger/sorting-code-alp...

[Aral Roca]

Oh nice. I sort imports alphabetically, but not functions. But It looks another alternative.

As a curiosity, if you have a module with a main function (export default) and other functions that are used by the "main" function. Do you put the main function at the top and the others at the bottom in alphabetical order, or do you also order the "main" function?

[Adam Nathaniel Davis]

Well, I spend most of my time doing React, which leverages functional components (very similar to a class). So with components, the component itself is the default export. Components can contain any number of functions. Inside the component, I always arrange my functions alphabetically.

In those cases where I'm defining standalone functions to be used across the app, I only ever define one function per file.

[SavagePixie]

I do a mix of alphabetical and abstraction order.

At the top I put all the helper functions sorted alphabetically and at the bottom the functions that the module exports (also sorted alphabetically).

For the same reason, I hate having to hunt functions up and down. Alphabetical order makes it much easier.

[pentacular]

Honestly, I think that if you do not have too many functions grouped together, the order does not matter.

The corollary being that if you care about the order of the functions, perhaps you have too many grouped together.

Perhaps the answer is to break them up into smaller, logical groups?

[Pacharapol Withayasakpunt]

Classical functions declaration all at the bottom, including locals. Of course this seems to work only in Javascript.

Eslint standard does not complain, though.

BTW, why I see no semi yet in this thread? Which defaults do you all use?

[Eljay-Adobe]

"...no semi..." as in no semicolons?

I use JavaScript Standard Style, which omits optional superflouous semicolons.

Ever since Douglas Crockford called Bootstrap's omitting semicolons "That is insanely stupid code. I am not going to dumb down JSMin for this case." I was convinced that omitting optional superfluous semicolons was the right thing to do. Then, reinforced after Brendan Eich agreed with Douglas Crockford in spirit and tone regarding semicolon omission as poor style.

Right or wrong, automatic semicolon insertion is part of the language, and has to be taken into account for both those in favor of putting semicolons in explicitly, and for those in favor of omitting semicolons where possible which means that are inserted implicitly.

The "where possible" is the crux of the matter, and can burn both sides.

Semicolons in JavaScript are not optional. When omitted — where it is possible to omit them — they are implicit, and automatically inserted for you.

Being aware of the edge cases where they are needed is the important part.

[Simon Dell]

I agree with your suggestion. "top to bottom" is much easier to read.

I rarely write code this way, however. I tend to group my functions around the domain they operate on, and then alphabetically, except where that causes linters to complain. I think you've managed to show me I need to rework my linter rules ;-)

Generally, however, I think lists of any programming token (functions, imports, parameters, members of an object/dictionary) are best entered in alphabetical order, when you work in a team. It's a very easy rule to remember and follow, and prevents wasted time during code review. It also supports how git works (line by line), so you have fewer conflicts when merging branches.

[Jonas Peeck]

Clean Code suggests an awesome analogy imho of ordering functions like they are an article in a newspaper:

Most important statement up top, then comes the subheadline, then the first paragraph that tells you everything you need to know and then the gritty details.

So essentially order by abstraction layer as others suggested, enhanced by thinking about what the most important LOC in that file are that somebody opening this file needs to read first.

[Florian Hammerschmidt]

Use a language which does not even allow to use a value or function before declaration (i.e. the compiler yields an error) and structure the low-level internals into nested modules.

For instance in ReasonML:

module Something = {
  let readInput = () => ();
  let writeOutput = () => ();
};

let doSomething = () => {
  Something.readInput();
  Something.writeOutput();
};

This makes it also very easy to factor out the module into a separate file later, when the file at hand becomes too big, because a file in ReasonML is also just a module.

[𒎏Wii 🏳️‍⚧️]

I've gotten used to structuring my code files so that helper functions go at the top and library functions then go at the bottom. Since I mostly code Lua, I can call any library function from any other, but with helper functions I don't really mind structuring them so the most low-level ones go on top.