At 12:26 AM 2/17/2002 +0100, Frank Joerdens wrote:
>I am looking for a good manual or introduction on how to write readable,
>extensible code (in any programming language). To give you an example,
>this bit looks pretty darn horrible and I just don't know how to
>rephrase it to make it more concise and readable:
>
>----------------------------- snip -----------------------------
>if ( ($var>0) & ( (strlen($var)==strlen(intval($var))) or
>((strlen($var)-1)==strlen(intval($var))) ) ) {
>
> do stuff;
>
>}
>----------------------------- snap -----------------------------
This is all just IMHO, because I'm still a bit of a beginner.
I have always been tempted to write code in the fewest lines possible. But
sometimes this is a Bad Thing, because it can make it very difficult to
figure out what you were thinking when you wrote it. I think readability
is more important, especially in PHP apps where you are not trying to
squeeze out every last bit of performance (don't get me wrong, speed is
important, but let's face it, we're not designing low level device drivers
or real time kernels here...)
Anyway, not really knowing what you are trying to accomplish above, I would
rewrite it like so:
$strlength = strlen($var);
$intlength = strlen(intval($var));
if($strlength == $intlength || $strlength - 1 == $intlength) {
$length_ok = true;
}
if($var > 0 && $length_ok) {
do stuff;
}
Yes, that is 6 more lines of code than your example, but I believe it is
much clearer and easier to read. Also, the above is actually self
documenting IMHO. If I was going to use your example in my code, I would
definitely have to comment it to remind myself of it's purpose later, where
my example I believe doesn't require comments as it's easier to read.
Don't have any specific book recommendations...maybe someone else will jump
in and suggest something...
--
PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/)
To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
