Style - if(null) { return } vs. if(!null)

Question

Which of the following blocks of code is the better style?

void doSomething(Object foo)
{
    if(foo == null) return;

    .
    .
    .
}

or

void doSomething(Object foo)
{
    if(foo != null) 
    {
       .
       .
       .
    }
}

I know they have the same semantic meaning, but I've seen both styles used around the web and within production code. Are there any big reasons I should use one over the other?

Resharper always prompts to convert code to the first way to avoid nesting. — crthompson, Jul 09 '14 at 01:23
There are no "big" reasons. Do whatever you feel makes your code more readable. — Blorgbeard, Jul 09 '14 at 01:24
While this question is opinion-based as coding style question, it already have good answer - http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8437307/does-inverting-the-if-improve-performance with reasons to pick one. — Alexei Levenkov, Jul 09 '14 at 01:26

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 09 '14 at 01:31

This might be more of religious question. In one camp there's the return early ideology, in the other is the single return per method crowd. Personally I think it depends on how long the method is and if the valid case is the majority the length. If the valid case is the longest part, I tend to return early for the invalid cases.

Style - if(null) { return } vs. if(!null)

1 Answers1