And Begin Idiom to avoid if with assignments

and_begin_idiom.rb

# After reading this comment
# http://avdi.org/devblog/2010/08/02/using-and-and-or-in-ruby/#comment-1098 ,
#
# I became aware of a cool idiom for Ruby.
#
# I've seen this in a lot of cases:

if (variable = expression_or_method(options))
  variable.calculate_something
  do_other_stuff(variable)
end

# This is another way to code the same concept:

variable = expression_or_method(options) and begin
  variable.calculate_something
  do_other_stuff(variable)
end

# The former case issues a warning because we're using = in an if statement.
# The latter seems more semantic to me too.
# What do you think??? Comments below!

cool

I'll go with assignment then checking.

variable = expression(something)
if variable
end

Can't be easier to read than that.

While the 2nd syntax is new to me and sounds "Techy" - I would still take the simple approach of assigning first and then checking. It way more readable to me this way.

Heavily dislike the 2nd syntax. It's extremely clever and hard to read. You should be asking yourself: Will the next person to read this code have a clear idea what I've done? I can't see yes being the answer.

Thinking in that way I agree with @evanphx. Second syntax is not common and most of people we don't know how it works.

i prefer the if, by far.

In the second, there seems to be a condition

Typically, when I'm doing something like this, I want to be able to specify an elsif or else condition, which isn't possible using begin, for instance:

if rubygem = Rubygem.find_by_name(gem_name)
  render :json => rubygem.public_versions
else
  render :text => "This rubygem could not be found.", :status => 404
end