single exit point : Java Glossary

2008-04-04 by Roedy Green ©1996-2008 Canadian Mind Products
Go to : punctuation 0-9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z (all)

single exit point: There is a school of thought that a method should have only one return statement. In general, this is a good idea. A return buried in a method disguises the program logic. However, some programmers sometimes take this notion to preposterous extremes. Some programmers will happily add 5 levels of nesting, and add a couple of booleans to avoid having a second return statement. I think a return or two at the very beginning of a method to handle the various empty cases is perfectly legit, and is not in the least confusing. If there are large numbers of returns, the logic is also clear. The danger is a sneaky return buried in the middle of the method.
multiple return values
return

	Please email your feedback for publication, errors, omissions, broken/redirected link reports and suggestions to improve this page to Roedy Green :
	Canadian Mind Products
	mindprod.com IP:[65.110.21.43]
	Your face IP:[38.103.63.16]	The information on this page is for non-military use only.
	You are visitor number 11.	Military use includes use by defence contractors.
	You can get a fresh copy of this page from:	or possibly from your local J: drive (Java virtual drive/Mindprod website mirror)
	http://mindprod.com/jgloss/singleexit.html	J:\mindprod\jgloss\singleexit.html