Question

I downloaded a free newsletter written in php from hotscripts.com

I updated a little the code to add new functionality and I saw something I don’t understand.

In the code I see:

foreach() { ...
 if() ...
  break;
 elseif() ...
  continue;
}

I also saw:

function() {
// ...
for($nl = 0; ...
 if() ...
  return true;
}

I read that break; will stop the loop, continue will skip the loop to the next iteration and return will exit the function.

What I don’t understand is why coding that style? Why not use something like:

function() {
// ...
 for($nl = 0; ...
  if() ...
   $returnValue = true;
  else {
   $returnValue = false;
  }
 }
 return $returnValue;
}

or same idea in the for loops?

Answer 1

Using keywords such as break and continue can make the code far easier to read than what you propose.

Especially if you are nesting if/else-statements more than one level.

Compare the snippets further down in this post, which one is easier to read?
Both of them output the same exact thing, and $A is array (1,2,4,4,3,4).

A return in a loop (inside a function) can save precious CPU cycles, if you know you don’t need to loop any further, why do it?

---

I’m too cool to use break/continue..

$not_even_found = false;

foreach ($A as $v) {
  if ($v != 1) {
    if ($not_even_found) {
    } else if ($v % 2 != 0) {
      $not_even_found = true;
    } else {
      echo "$v\n";
    }
  }
}

---

I want to have readable code..

foreach ($A as $v) {
  if ($v == 1)
    continue;

  if ($v % 2 != 0)
    break;

  echo "$v\n";
}