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Cover image for Code Smell 201 - Nested Ternaries
Maxi Contieri
Maxi Contieri

Posted on • Originally published at maximilianocontieri.com

Code Smell 201 - Nested Ternaries

Arrow Code, Nested Conditions, switches, else, and many more

TL;DR: Don't use nested IFs or nested ternaries

Problems

  • Readability

  • Default Case

Solutions

  1. Rewrite the code as an IF condition with an early return

Context

Nesting is always a problem with complexity.

We can fix it with polymorphism or early returns

Sample Code

Wrong


const getUnits = secs => (
 secs <= 60       ? 'seconds' :
 secs <= 3600     ? 'minutes' :
 secs <= 86400    ? 'hours'   :
 secs <= 2592000  ? 'days'    :
 secs <= 31536000 ? 'months'  :
                    'years' 
)

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Right


const getUnits = secs => {
 if (secs <= 60) return 'seconds'; 
 if (secs <= 3_600) return 'minutes'; 
 if (secs <= 86_400) return 'hours';   
 if (secs <= 2_592_000) return 'days';    
 if (secs <= 31_536_000) return 'months';  
 return 'years' 
}

// More declarative

const getUnits = secs => {
 if (secs <= 60) return 'seconds'; 
 if (secs <= 60 * 60) return 'minutes'; 
 if (secs <= 24 * 60 * 60) return 'hours';   
 if (secs <= 30 * 24 * 60 * 60) return 'days';    
 if (secs <= 12 * 30 * 24 * 60 * 60) return 'months';  
 return 'years' 
}

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Detection

[X] Automatic

Linters can detect this complexity using parsing trees.

Tags

  • IFs

Conclusion

We must deal with accidental complexity to improve code readability.

Relations

Disclaimer

Code Smells are my opinion.

Credits

Photo by NIKHIL on Unsplash


One of the best things to come out of the home computer revolution could be the general and widespread understanding of how severely limited logic really is.

Frank Herbert


This article is part of the CodeSmell Series.

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