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-7

Real quick question about the "break" (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/programming

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I'm studying programming, and I don't agree woth my teacher. She basically said that if we use break (and continue too maybe) our test is an instant fail. She's reasoning is that it makes the code harder to read, and breaks the flow of it or something. (I didn't get her yapping tbh)

I can't understand why break would do anything of the sorts. I asked around and noone agreed with the teacher. So I came here. Is there a benefit to not using breaks or continues? And if you think she's wrong, please explain why, briefly even. We do enough down talking on almost all teachers she doesn't need more online.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Well, sometimes it is possible to write a loop with break or without it, and in such cases solution without break is better readable. But if you don't see a simple way to avoid using break, use it. It is very common, as well as having multiple return statements in function. Even goto can be a good solution sometimes if it points to label located below and not very far.

However you should avoid some antipatterns. If you write an infinite loop that is interrupted only by break, it is highly likely that you are doing something wrong. Nested loops with multiple breaks or gotos are very hard to read and debug. Such code usually can and should be rewritten for better readability and to avoid possible errors (occasional hangs, for instance).