I don't like this… Is this cheating the language?

Question

I have seen something like the following a couple times... and I hate it. Is this basically \'cheating\' the language? Or.. would you consider this to be \'ok\' because the IsNu

Answer 1

I don't think it's any different than something like this:

INT* pNumber = GetAddressOfNumber();

if ((pNUmber != NULL) && (*pNumber > 0))
{
  // valid number, do whatever
}
else
{
  // On a null pointer, it drops to here, because (pNumber != NULL) fails
  // However, (*pNumber > 0), if used by itself, would throw and exception when dereferencing NULL
}

It's just taking advantage of a feature in the language. This kind of idiom has been in common use, I think, since C started executing Boolean expressions in this manner (or whatever language did it first).)