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Ruby tip: Return early

This tip has been covered in Refactoring, as well as a few other places, but I still see it pretty regularly go unused in rails code.

Tip: Instead of nesting, just return early.

E.g.

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def go_home
  if wants_to_go_home?
    pack_bags!
  end
end

While this code is fine, it’s both clearer and more concise to say:

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def go_home
  return unless wants_to_go_home?
  pack_bags!
end

Update:

‘xyz’ points out in a comment that this is a horrible example of when to use this as it’s far better to just say:

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def go_home
  pack_bags! if wants_to_go_home?
end

While my intention had been to give a short example, it would probably have been better to give something like:

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def go_home
  if can_go_home? && wants_to_go_home?
     pack_bags!
     get_tickets!
     board_plane!
  end
end

In this case, I think it becomes worthwhile to instead do:

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def go_home
  return unless can_go_home? && wants_to_go_home?
  pack_bags!
  get_tickets!
  board_plane!
end

Hopefully that is a better example!

February 09, 2009

  1. xyz says:

    If clarity is the objective, why not just:

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    def go_home
  pack_bags! if wants_to_go_home?
end

    February 09, 2009 at 8:11 AM
  2. Rymaï says:

    My first thought was "it's not so clear", but now, I've tried it and I like the way explicitly calling "return" to say "get out of here!". ;)

    Thanks for the tip, I had seen it before, but never really used.

    February 10, 2009 at 7:24 PM
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