[ale] found a bug in an open source API: It 'Broke' under linux.

[Tim Watts]

[ pardon me for I'm butting in ]

You're right: to the compiler it's just style. But I look at them as
cheap insurance against future bugs. 

// The code in Feb 2011:
if (somethingIsTrue())
	doASimpleTask()
else
	doTheAlternateTask()

// The code in Feb 2012:
if (somethingIsTrue())
	doASimpleTask();
else
	doTheAlternateTask();
	doTheWorkAroundToo();

Of course, this is broke and you may very well have caught it. But
enclosing it in {} in the first place would have avoided the need to
even think about it. About the only time I'll omit braces is with
conditionals that are one-liners (and sometimes not even then):

if (log.isDebugEnabled()) log.debug("now i'm opening the pickle jar.");


On Sat, 2011-02-12 at 16:06 -0500, Joshua wrote:
> James,
> 
> I put the {} around the block, (which helps to guard against certain 
> bugs).  the {} make the code easier to read, but I do not know that with 
> one line of code they prevent any bugs.
> 
> from what I read, and the discussions I had on iirc, a dangling else is 
> more of a grammatical (readability) thing, from a human perspective, the 
> compiler /interpreter will take care of any ambiguity with if/else 
> blocks, as far as I can tell.  The else attaches to the nearest if 
> block.  I can see the issue from a psuedocode perspective, where the 
> grammatical ambiguity can cause problems when actually implementing the 
> code, but one the code is written it is the placement of the } from 
> preceding if statements that determine which 'if' the 'else' will attach to.
> 
> or am I missing something?
> 
> 
> 
> Maybe that is all the dangling else is: a semantics things.
> 
> 
> James Sumners wrote:
> > My only suggestion would be to fix your dangling else block --
> > http://pastebin.com/pTzUQzjJ
> >
> > On Sat, Feb 12, 2011 at 2:53 PM, Joshua <jrtroberts at gmail.com> wrote:
> >   
> >>  I am working with an API for currency conversion from
> >> http://www.thomasknierim.com/index.php?s=currencyconverter&Submit=Search
> >> <http://www.thomasknierim.com/index.php?s=currencyconverter&Submit=Search>
> >>
> >> It is all written is Java.
> >>
> >> The initCacheFile()  method worked fine under windows, but it broke
> >> under linux.
> >>
> >> The original code grabbed the path to the java temp directory and then
> >> concatenated  a file name onto the end of it.   I do not know what it
> >> produces under windows, but my suspicion is that windows is something
> >> like </driveletter:\pathtotemp\/>  with the trailing '\' included.
> >>
> >> Under linux the call to return the temp directory returns '/tmp' and
> >> then the concatenating of '/filename/'  creates a file named
> >> /tmp/filename/ instead of /tmp//filename/  so the application was trying
> >> to write to / where it did not have permissions.  So I had to write a
> >> fix.  Still not sure the fix is this best.
> >>
> >>
> >> Maybe someone can look at the code I wrote and let me know.
> >>
> >> http://pastebin.com/vsC6vZRU
> >>
> >> The old code is commented out.
> >>
> >> Joshua Roberts
> >>     
> >
> >
> >   
> 
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