Return Early and Give up Single Exit Point

return early and give up single exit point

TL;DR

I’d like to return early and give up single exit point in my code.

Demo goes first

public bool singleExitPoint(bool someCondition)
{
    if (someCondition)
    {
        // Do Something
    } else {
        // Do Something
    }
    
    return false;
}


public void returnEarly(bool someCondition)
{
    if (!someCondition)
        return false

    // Do Something
    
    return true;
}

My reasons

I do respect the “single exit point rule”, especially when debugging because you don’t know when and where the code breaks if there are so many exits.

However, it’s also a pain, especially when:

1. handling exceptions
2. handling special conditions
3. one exit force you indent code blocks

Conclusion

In the beginning, I don’t think this topic could bother me. However, in the code review, the peer told me not to break this rule. If it’s written in the team’s code standard, I definitely will follow. However, if not, I don’t think it’s necessary.

References

Why should a function have only one exit-point