Re: if variants

[DrHyde]

One thing that's worth mentioning is that while this:

if($foo == 7) {
    print "foo is 7\n";
} else {
    print "foo is not 7\n";
}

is acceptable, this:

unless($foo != 7) {
    print "foo is 7\n";
} else {
    print "foo is not 7\n";
}

is not. Sure, perl will accept it (I consider this to be a bug in perl), and it'll run, but anyone writing it should be beaten savagely. It's VERY hard to read.

[apotheon]

I edited to include some brief mention of the undesirability of the != operator there. Thanks for the suggestion.

[DrHyde]

Noooooo! != is fine. It's unless ... else that is hideously broken!

[apotheon]

I can understand avoiding the != in an if statement, since using unless covers that functionality. I don't know why unless . . . else would be "bad", however. Explain?

[ihb]

It's worth noting, by the way, that using $foo != 7 as the control statement in an if statement is generally a Bad Idea. The unless statement is designed to cover that need, and using the != operator there just makes the code harder to read later when it must be maintained.

I second DrHyde (Re^3: if variants). It's definately not bad and neither is it a maintenance trouble. That whole sentence above should be removed from your text. It's just plain wrong.

The unless keyword is made to make you write code more like a natural language. It's not there to take !='s place in if expressions. They can both coexist happily and be mixed however you please.

Why the combination of unless and else is shunned by many is because it's a sort of double negation.

if (X) { ... } else { ... }

can be read

if (X) { ... } if (not X) { ... }

"unless X" can be read "if not X". Combining this gives you

unless (X) { ... } else { ... }
if (not X) { ... } if (not not X) { ... }

which just doesn't read well. Logically it's not strange but it's a funny and inappreciated way of expressing oneself.

My own (rather inconsistent) style is to use unless for exceptional behaviour, and if for expected/wanted behaviour. When using unless I usually want something, but something might stop me from doing that. With if I express that I perhaps want something, perhaps not.

print ... unless $quiet; # I want to print.
exit if $done;           # I might want to exit here.
exit unless $stay;       # I want to exit here, but apparently
                         # something is holding me back.

The examples can perhaps be better, and I'm not consistant myself in my use, but that's give you an idea of how I tend to use them.

ihb

[apotheon]

Thanks for the clarification. Mea culpa.