VBA Short-Circuit `And` Alternatives

Question

VBA doesn't short-circuit

VBA does not support short-circuiting - apparently because it only has bitwise And/Or/Not etc operations. From the VBA language specification: "Logical operators are simple data operators that perform bitwise computations on their operands." In this light, it makes sense that VBA was designed with true = &H1111 and false = &H0000: this way logical statements can be evaluated as bitwise operations.

The lack of short-circuiting can cause problems

1. Performance: the ReallyExpensiveFunction() will always be run when this statement is evaluated, even if it is not necessary by the result of the left hand side of the condition

   If IsNecessary() And ReallyExpensiveFunction() Then '... End If

2. Errors: if MyObj is Nothing, this conditional statment will result in a runtime error because VBA will still try to check the value of Property

   If Not MyObj Is Nothing And MyObj.Property = 5 Then '... End If

The solution I've used to implement short-cirtcuiting behavior is nested Ifs

If cond1 And cond2 Then
    '...
End If

Becomes

If cond1 Then
    If cond2 Then
        '...
    End If
End If

This way the If statements give the short-circuit-like behavior of not bothering to evaluate cond2 if cond1 is False.

If there is an Else clause, this creates duplicate code blocks

If Not MyObj Is Nothing And MyObj.Property = 5 Then
    MsgBox "YAY"
Else
    MsgBox "BOO"
End If

Becomes

If Not MyObj Is Nothing Then
    If MyObj.Property = 5 Then
        MsgBox "YAY"
    Else
        MsgBox "BOO" 'Duplicate
    End If
Else
    MsgBox "BOO" 'Duplicate
End If

Is there a way to rewrite If statements to preserve the short-circuit behavior, but avoid duplication of code?

Perhaps with another branching statement like Select Case?

---

To add context to the question, here is the specific case I'm looking at. I'm implementing a hash table that handles collisions by chaining them in a linked list. The underlying array size is enforced to be a power of two and the hashes are distributed into the current array size by truncating them to the appropriate length.

For example, suppose the array length is 16 (binary 10000). If I have a key that hashes to 27 (binary 11011), I can store it in my 16 slot array by keeping only the bits within the limit of that array size. The index where this item would be stored is (hash value) And (length of array - 1) which in this case is (binary 11011) And (1111) which is 1011 which is 11. The actual hash code is stored along with the key in the slot.

When looking up an item in the hash table in a chain, both the hash and the key must be checked to determine that the correct item has been found. However, if the hash doesn't match, then there is no reason to check the key. I was hoping to gain some tiny intangible amount of performance by nesting the Ifs to get the short-circuit behavior:

While Not e Is Nothing
    If keyhash = e.hash Then
        If Key = e.Key Then
            e.Value = Value
            Exit Property
        Else
            Set e = e.nextEntry
        End If
    Else
        Set e = e.nextEntry
    End If
Wend

You can see the Set... is duplicated, and thus this question.

Answer 1

As a more general apprach, I suggest to introduce condition flags and make usage of assigning comparison results to booleans:

dim cond1 as boolean
dim cond2 as boolean

cond1 = false
cond2 = false

' Step 1
cond1 = MyObj Is Nothing

' Step 2: do it only if step 1 was sucessful 
if cond1 then
    cond2 = MyObj.Property = 5
end if

' Final result:
if cond2 then
   msgbox "Yay"
else
   msgbox "Boo"
end if

By "chaining" those condition flags, every step is safe, you see the final result in the last condition flag and you don't do unnecessary comparisons. And, to me, it keeps readable.

EDIT 2014-07-09

I usually never omit block delimiters and I consequently set every statement of control structures on a new line. But in this case, you can carefully get a very dense notation that reminds on short-circuit notation, also because the VBA compiler initiates the variables:

dim cond1 as boolean
dim cond2 as boolean
dim cond3 as boolean
dim cond4 as boolean

cond1 = MyObj Is Nothing
if cond1 then cond2 = MyObj.Property = 5
if cond2 then cond3 = MyObj.Property2 = constSomething
if cond3 then cond4 = not isNull(MyObj.Property77)

if cond4 then
   msgbox "Hyper-Yay"
else
   msgbox "Boo"
end if

I could agree to this. It's a clear flow to read.

EDIT 2021-03-21

Thanks to @Tom's comment, one can write it simpler:

dim cond as boolean

cond = MyObj Is Nothing
if cond then cond = MyObj.Property = 5
if cond then cond = MyObj.Property2 = constSomething
if cond then cond = not isNull(MyObj.Property77)

if cond then
   msgbox "Hyper-Yay"
else
   msgbox "Boo"
end if

@Tom explains the advantages in his comment below. I fully agree with this. I can only imagine some situations while debugging, when I would like to have separated results of the conditions, and therefore explicitely with four different variables.

Answer 2

There is a way. You're not guaranteed to like it. But this is one of those carefully constructed cases where Goto comes in handy

If Not MyObj Is Nothing Then
    If MyObj.Property = 5 Then
        MsgBox "YAY"
    Else
        Goto JUMPHERE
    End If
Else
JUMPHERE:
    MsgBox "BOO" 'Duplicate
End If

A short-circuited code to implement a short-circuited condition!

Alternately, if instead of MsgBox "BOO" is some long and convoluted code, it can be wrapped in a function and that can be written twice with minimal impact/overhead.

---

Regarding the specific use case, the multiple Set operations will have a minimal performance impact and hence, if one wants to avoid using Goto (still the most globally efficient approach, codesize + performance wise, avoiding creation of dummy variables, etc. - won't matter, though for such a small piece of code) there is negligible downside in simply repeating the command.

Just to analyze (your sample code) how much can be gained by different methods...

• If both conditions are true:, there are 2 comparisons, 1 assignment, 0 jumps
• If only first condition is true: there are 2 comparisons, 1 pointer-assignment, 1 jump
• If only second condition is true: there is 1 comparison, 1 pointer-assignment, 1 jump
• If both conditions are false: there is 1 comparison, 1 pointer-assignment, 1 jump (same as above)

In terms of performance, a jump is usually more expensive than comparison (which happens very quickly in ALU vs. the jump which could lead to a disruption in the code cache, maybe not at these sizes, but still jumps are expensive).

And normal assignment by value would be at best as fast as a pointer-assignment or sometimes worse (this is VBA, can't be 100% sure of the p-code implementation)

So, depending on your use case / expected data, you can try to minimize average number of jumps per iteration in your loop and reorder the code.

Answer 3

How about:

s = "BOO"

If Not MyObj Is Nothing Then
    If MyObj.Property = 5 Then s = "YAY"
End If

MsgBox s