A Case of Old Code

We’ve talked about the For-Case anti-pattern many, many times. And while we’ve seen some wild variations, and some pretty hideous versions, I think we have yet to see the exact example Ashley H sends us:

for (int i = 0; i < 4; i++) {
    if (i == 0) {
        step1();
    } else if (i == 1) {
        step2();
    } else if (i == 2) {
        step3();
    } else if (i == 3){
        finalStep();
    }
}    

The specific names of the functions have been anonymized, but this illustrates the key points of what Ashley found.

It’s been in the code base for some time, so she’s not entirely certain where it came from, or what the company’s code review practices were like at the time.

You see, this kind of code doesn’t appear fully formed. It gets created, one step, after another, after another, after another. It’s like a loop, but… uh… in a line. Without looping.