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2.6: The Great Bracket Debate

  • Page ID
    29019
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    The Great Bracket Debate

    It really isn't that big a deal - but it continues to be a point of disagreement across the software developers' world: Where do the curly brackets belong when I write my code. Once again, for you as a software developer in the world, someone else will probably make that decision for the project you are working one.

    But, let us take a few moments to examine what the options are.

    The following code is a common example of how people write the code. Notice that the first { is on the line AFTER the function definition. On the If/else statements the opening bracket is at the end of the line. Both of these are valid ways to code the brackets.

    void someFunction() 
     { 
         if (condition()) { 
             cout << "condition was true" << endl; 
         } else { 
             cout << "condition was false" << endl; 
         } 
     } 

    Another frequent formatting is that brackets are always on a line by themselves. Some say this make code easy to read and debug as you can see the matching brackets quite easily.

    void someFunction() 
     { 
         if (condition()) 
         { 
             cout << "condition was true" << endl; 
         } 
         else 
         { 
             cout << "condition was false" << endl; 
         } 
     } 

    The code below shows how some programmers seem to go make it difficult to read their code....this is a valid way to code, but does make it a bit it more difficult to read.

    void someFunction() 
     { 
         if (condition()) 
            { 
                cout << "condition was true" << endl; 
            } 
         else 
            { 
                cout << "condition was false" << endl; 
            } 
     } 

    For this class, I will not tell you which method to use, but I suggest you NOT make it difficult for me or my grader to grade your code...do so may cost you points!!


    This page titled 2.6: The Great Bracket Debate is shared under a CC BY-SA license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Patrick McClanahan.

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