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Coding Style: Why to not group variables and align equals

Thursday, 16 June 2011

Here is a diff from a git log -p stream I was reviewing:

-var ZPOOL_PATH = '/sbin/zpool'
-  , ZFS_PATH   = '/sbin/zfs'
-  , PFEXEC_PATH   = '/bin/pfexec';
+var ZPOOL_PATH  = '/sbin/zpool'
+  , ZFS_PATH    = '/sbin/zfs';

If (a) this wasn’t using the “group all vars in a single statement” cuteness:

var ZPOOL_PATH = '/sbin/zpool'
var ZFS_PATH   = '/sbin/zfs'
var PFEXEC_PATH   = '/bin/pfexec';

and (b) wasn’t using the anti-pattern (IMHO, of course) of aligning ‘=’ in variable declaraction blocks:

var ZPOOL_PATH = '/sbin/zpool'
var ZFS_PATH = '/sbin/zfs'
var PFEXEC_PATH = '/bin/pfexec';

then the diff hunk would have been:

-var PFEXEC_PATH = '/bin/pfexec';

which is what it should have been.

Tagged: style