Curly braces placement and indentation

[Andre S. Veteran]

Almost all the code I've seen until now uses the following style for curly braces:

void swap(int &a, int &b)
{
	int temp = a;
	a = b;
	b = temp;
}

Visual Studio also defaults to this. However I have read Code Complete 2nd edition and Steve McConnell argues against this style. "Avoid unindented being-end pairs (...) Although this approach looks fine, it (...) doesn't show the logical structure of the code. Used this way, the begin and end aren't part of the control construct, but they aren't part of the statements after it either." Steve McConnell recommends using the pure block style, which emulates Visual Basic (where there's no curly braces):

void swap(int &a, int &b) {
	int temp = a;
	a = b;
	b = temp;
}

or this (begin-end block boundaries):

void swap(int &a, int &b) 
	{
	int temp = a;
	a = b;
	b = temp;
	}

Although I tend to agree with McConnell's reasoning, all the books I read, the classes I attended, and Visual Studio, use the first style, so I find it a bit weird. What do you think?

[Doli]

I use the first style that you posted, I can deal with the second style (even though I still changed the options in Eclipse to look like the first style) but the third style looks weird.

[rccola70]

idk i do it the first way, when i first

[APH-Alex]

I use the third style for my CSS code. But with the code inside of the curly brackets in by one space.

[_kane81]

I use the second style, and I do find it quite readable.

At first I hated it, but now I'm just use to it.

[James123]

I use the 2nd Style for CSS, the 1st style for every other language. Definitely the easiest to be able to quickly match up the brackets when scanning through code, for me personally anyway. Also, everywhere I've worked has used that style. One of the main things I disagreed with in the Code Complete book.

[Mathachew Veteran]

I'm with James: CSS for second style, everything else uses first. Sometimes my JS will use the second style if I make a variable a function.

[reil]

i've used the second style in the past and the first style now.

in the end, you may not have a large amount of choice. its a discussion between you and your team to come to a style/format agreement for your codebase.

[+virtorio MVC]

I use the first style for almost everything and the second style for CSS. The third style looks terrible to me.

[primexx]

I use the second style, doesn't waste an extra line.

[Argi]

First style here, although I occasionally use the 2nd.

[Brian M. Veteran]

I always use the second for CSS, and the first for everything else.

[Antaris Veteran]

I used to use the second style all the time, but since re-installing VS, I haven't disabled the { } bracing feature, so it just defaults to style one. Kinda stuck with that now.

If I do any work outside of it, I still tend to go with the second style.

[The2]

I use first one in VS and CSS, everything else with the 2nd

but everybody I know use first one

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

I use the second style in anything that allows it.

[[idkfa]]

I always use the second style, but the third one also looks nice to me.

[ramesees]

Yeah I use the first style

The second style just looks weird to me, I dont like it.

I prefer how Visual Studio defaults to the first style even after manually specifying the second style

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

I use the first style.

I guess I learned from sources that did the same.

[+Majesticmerc MVC]

First style for me. I find that the first style flows better to me when I read it, and that's how I've always been taught to indent, however I use style two for Javascript as it seems to be more the defacto style for indentation. The third style I've never used, and probably never will, it looks very strange.

On a slight tangent, I also find myself doing this more often in my code:

while (!foo and index < bar)
{ foo = MyFunc(index); index++;}

As I'm writing bigger projects as I get on in life, I'm finding increasingly annoying that 2 lines of code can occupy 4 lines, and this was my solution (Anything more get's indented properly). Would this annoy you if you were reading my work?

Edited April 8, 2008 by El Sid

[Rudy]

I usually go for the 2nd style, that's what I use for my C and Java code

[Mike]

first style for me, reason:

say you have something like:

if (insert expression of choice here but it's long) {
  some code
  more code
}

i need to look right across the line for the opening { whereas

if (insert expression of choice here but it's long)
{
  some code
  more code
}

i can just look under the if, also for things like:

if (insert expression of choice here but it's long)
  some one line code
some code here tooo

i can see that the if doesn't have/need { } because its 1 line, or if i see:

if (insert expression of choice here but it's long)
{
  some code
some code here tooo
}

i can see the second line is wrongly indented but its part of the if condition code, if the { bracket was on the if line i could easily miss that and think the code for the if condition being true is only one line

[[idkfa]]

if (insert expression of choice here but it's long)
  some one line code
some code here tooo

I never do that, it just leads to confusion. At university, we even got bad marks when we used if's without braces :rolleyes:

[Twisted Chaz]

I use the 2nd style for everything, just makes sense to me I suppose. like

if(bla == bla) {
	do code
} else {
   do code
}

[AnthonySterling]

First style for me. I find that the first style flows better to me when I read it, and that's how I've always been taught to indent, however I use style two for Javascript as it seems to be more the defacto style for indentation. The third style I've never used, and probably never will, it looks very strange.

On a slight tangent, I also find myself doing this more often in my code:

while (!foo and index < bar)
{ foo = MyFunc(index); index++;}

As I'm writing bigger projects as I get on in life, I'm finding increasingly annoying that 2 lines of code can occupy 4 lines, and this was my solution (Anything more get's indented properly). Would this annoy you if you were reading my work?

Well your example, for me, would be 5 lines of code.

while (!foo and index < bar)
{ 
	foo = MyFunc(index);
	index++;
}

I find example one to be far easy to read.

[abshack]

I use the first style for functions (methods) and classes.

public int Foo()
{
	 int random_integer = 0;
	 Console.WriteLine(++random_integer++);
	 Console.WriteLine(random_integer--);
	 return random_integer;
}

Second style for loops, ifs, and cases.

for(int i=0;i<arr.length();i++){
  // Do something here.
}

[MiG-]

First style for me. I find that the first style flows better to me when I read it, and that's how I've always been taught to indent, however I use style two for Javascript as it seems to be more the defacto style for indentation. The third style I've never used, and probably never will, it looks very strange.

On a slight tangent, I also find myself doing this more often in my code:

while (!foo and index < bar)
{ foo = MyFunc(index); index++;}

As I'm writing bigger projects as I get on in life, I'm finding increasingly annoying that 2 lines of code can occupy 4 lines, and this was my solution (Anything more get's indented properly). Would this annoy you if you were reading my work?

Why would you even bother with the braces?

I prefer style 1, so much nicer to read and have braces that line up. I don't like why people use braces for one line if statements as well, looks horrendous.