Should a function have only one return statement?

Answer 1

I currently am working on a codebase where two of the people working on it blindly subscribe to the "single point of exit" theory and I can tell you that from experience, it's a horrible horrible practice. It makes code extremely difficult to maintain and I'll show you why.

With the "single point of exit" theory, you inevitably wind up with code that looks like this:

function()
{
    HRESULT error = S_OK;

    if(SUCCEEDED(Operation1()))
    {
        if(SUCCEEDED(Operation2()))
        {
            if(SUCCEEDED(Operation3()))
            {
                if(SUCCEEDED(Operation4()))
                {
                }
                else
                {
                    error = OPERATION4FAILED;
                }
            }
            else
            {
                error = OPERATION3FAILED;
            }
        }
        else
        {
            error = OPERATION2FAILED;
        }
    }
    else
    {
        error = OPERATION1FAILED;
    }

    return error;
}

Not only does this make the code very hard to follow, but now say later on you need to go back and add an operation in between 1 and 2. You have to indent just about the entire freaking function, and good luck making sure all of your if/else conditions and braces are matched up properly.

This method makes code maintenance extremely difficult and error prone.