Question

This question applies to every programming language that has a short-circuit AND operator, not just C#.

The question is simple – is using short circuit evaluation to avoid an out of range index exception, for example:

if ((x > 0) && (bar[x] == foo))

or

if (((x > 0) && (x < bar.Length)) && (bar[x] == foo))

bad coding style? I know I could nest the loops like this:

if (x > 0)
{
    if (bar[x] == foo)
    {
    }
}

but I find it to be extremely unreadable.

Answer 1

I would say that

if ((x > 0) && (bar[x] == foo))

is not bad coding style. It’s probably even good. I would definitely prefer it to a nested if structure like you describe.

As an aside, I would reduce the number of parentheses you use. Both these are equally correct, at least in C# and most other C-derived languages:

if (x > 0 && bar[x] == foo)
if (x > 0 && x < bar.Length && bar[x] == foo)

Readers who know the language (you have to assume this at some level) will easily be able to understand the above short-circuit expressions. Those readers would probably object to the nested if style, because it takes way more room than is necessary to get the correct behaviour.