Booleans are natural code smells. Returning and casting them is sometimes a mistake
TL;DR: Don't return true or false. Be declarative.
Problems
Readability
Primitive Obsession
If/Else abuse
Solutions
Return truth value in a declarative way
Replace IF With polymorphism.
Context
Dealing with low-level abstractions, we usually return booleans.
When we create complex and mature software, we start to forget about this primitive obsession and care about real-world rules and identities.
Sample Code
Wrong
boolean isEven(int num){
if(num%2 == 0){
return true;
} else {
return false;}
}
Right
boolean isEven(int numberToCheck){
//We decouple the what (to check for even or odd)
//With how (the algorithm)
return (numberToCheck % 2 == 0);
}
Detection
[X] Automatic
Many linters can check syntactic trees and look for explicit true/value returns
Tags
- Primitive
Conclusion
Search on code libraries for return true statements and try to replace them when possible.
Relations
More Info
Credits
Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash
The good news is: Anything is possible on your computer. The bad news is: Nothing is easy.
Ted Nelson
This article is part of the CodeSmell Series.
Top comments (1)
Helpful points of view, thank you!