Should a function have only one return statement?

language-agnostic coding-style
David picture David · Aug 31, 2008 · Viewed 271.2k times · Source

Are there good reasons why it's a better practice to have only one return statement in a function?

Or is it okay to return from a function as soon as it is logically correct to do so, meaning there may be many return statements in the function?

Answer

Matt Hamilton picture Matt Hamilton · Aug 31, 2008

I often have several statements at the start of a method to return for "easy" situations. For example, this:

public void DoStuff(Foo foo)
{
    if (foo != null)
    {
        ...
    }
}

... can be made more readable (IMHO) like this:

public void DoStuff(Foo foo)
{
    if (foo == null) return;

    ...
}

So yes, I think it's fine to have multiple "exit points" from a function/method.

Related questions

What does 'foo' really mean?

I hope this qualifies as a programming question, as in any programming tutorial, you eventually come across 'foo' in the code examples. (yeah, right?) what does 'foo' really mean? If it is meant to mean nothing, when did it begin …

Read More
Private vs Protected - Visibility Good-Practice Concern

I've been searching and I know the theoretic difference. public - Any class/function may access the method/property. protected - Only this class and any subclasses may access the method/property. private - Only this class may access the …

Read More
Why is it recommended to have empty line in the end of a source file?

Some code style tools recommend this and I remember seeing some unix command line tools warning about missing empty line. What is the reasoning for having an extra empty line?

Read More