Better Java method Syntax? Return early or late? [duplicate]

Answer 1

Honestly I think it depends on the situation. Personally I use both, and I decide based on which one will make the code more clear and easy to read.

If you have heavily nested if statements (or any other control structure) and it may get confusing, then I would return inside the statements

Don't worry too much about what is 'best practice' in this case, as it is more important that the code is clear and easy to understand. Use what feels right for the situation.

Answer 2

To me, this is sort of one of those religious war topics with no correct answer. The argument against returning early essentially boils down to the fact that having one and only one point where a function can exit reduces the number of possible paths through your code, thus, in theory at least, reducing the chances for bugs. My personal style is to, in situations where it makes sense to return early do so, and in situations where it makes sense to limit to one return statement I do that.

Answer 3

If it's a method you'll be calling thousands of times, then early return is better to achieve a [slightly] increased performance.

If not, then I'd prefer late return, since it improves readability.

Remember programmers usually spend more time reading than writing code, so anything you can do to improve readability will be certainly welcome.

Answer 4

If exceptions aren't part of the picture, I prefer returning immediately when I can.

It can be easy to mismanage the flag variable and I'm against flag variables in general. Not returning also might make a maintainer think that further work might be done (if the method is long).