Coding Style: Return expected last

Example: Person object

Given: A function that will return a user's full name, but only if first name and last name are present:

function getFullName() {
    if (this.first_name && this.last_name) {
        return this.first_name + ' ' + this.last_name;
    }
    /* More checks/validation
     * ...
     */
    return '';
}

Return the expected result as last statement.
More checks might follow after validating first name and last name not being empty.

function getFullName() {
    if (!this.first_name || !this.last_name) {
        return '';
    }
    return this.first_name + ' ' + this.last_name;
}

Example: Database connect function

The approach can also help to reduce code complexity:

function connect() {
    if (db.connect()) {
        if (db.selectdb()) {
            return db.getConnection();
        }
        else {
            return undefined;
        }
    }
    else {
        return undefined;
    }
}

After refactoring:

function connect() {
    if (!db.connect()) {
        return undefined;
    }
    if (!db.selectdb()) {
        return undefined;
    }
    return db.getConnection();
}

Cascading assignments

There might be cases when you need to get some result, using different methods in a cascading manner. To avoid overwriting an already set result, you might check it before:

let store = getCacheStore();
if (!store) {
    store = getRemoteStore();
}
if (!store) {
    store = getLocalStore();
}

Refactoring – I

A cleaner approach could be to use the do...while construct:

let store;
do {
    store = getCacheStore();
    if (store) break;

    store = getRemoteStore();
    if (store) break;

    store = getLocalStore();
    if (store) break;

} while (false);

Refactoring – II

It can be shorten like this (although it can be confusing or misleading; a code style checker might warn):

let store;
do {

    if (store = getCacheStore()) break;
    if (store = getRemoteStore()) break;
    if (store = getLocalStore()) break;

} while (false);

Refactoring – III

For really simple cases like the ones shown (where the code has already been moved to separate functions), it can be reduced to the following code:

const store = getCacheStore() || getRemoteStore() || getLocalStore();