[Bioperl-l] For CVS developers - potential pitfall with "returnundef"

[Rutger Vos]

Although I agree with the sentiment of following PBP, I'm not so sure 
changing 'return undef' to 'return' *now* will fix any bugs without 
introducing new, subtle ones.

Chris Fields wrote:
> Torsten,
>
> Any way you can post a list of some/all of the offending lines or modules?
> Sounds like something to consider, but if the list is as large as you say we
> made need something (bugzilla? wiki?) to track the changes and make sure
> they pass tests; I'm sure a large majority will.  
>
> I'm guessing Jason would want this somewhere on the project priority list or
> bugzilla, with a link to the actual list, but I'm not sure.  Maybe start a
> page on the wiki for proposed code changes?
>
> Chris
>
>   
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: bioperl-l-bounces at lists.open-bio.org [mailto:bioperl-l-
>> bounces at lists.open-bio.org] On Behalf Of Torsten Seemann
>> Sent: Tuesday, May 30, 2006 3:19 AM
>> To: bioperl-l at lists.open-bio.org
>> Subject: [Bioperl-l] For CVS developers - potential pitfall with
>> "returnundef"
>>
>> FYI Bioperl developers:
>>
>> I just audited the bioperl-live CVS and found about 450 occurrences of
>> "return undef".
>>
>> Page 199 of "Perl Best Practices" by Damian Conway, and this URL
>> http://www.perl.com/lpt/a/2006/02/23/advanced_subroutines.html suggest:
>>
>> "Use return; instead of return undef; if you want to return nothing. If
>> someone assigns the return value to an array, the latter creates an
>> array of one value (undef), which evaluates to true. The former will
>> correctly handle all contexts."
>>
>> So I'm guessing at least some of these 450 occurrences *could* result in
>> bugs and should probably be changed.
>>
>> Your opinion may differ :-)
>>
>> --
>> Dr Torsten Seemann               http://www.vicbioinformatics.com
>> Victorian Bioinformatics Consortium, Monash University, Australia
>>
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>>     
>
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>   

-- 
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Rutger Vos, PhD. candidate
Department of Biological Sciences
Simon Fraser University
8888 University Drive
Burnaby, BC, V5A1S6
Phone: 604-291-5625 
Fax: 604-291-3496
Personal site: http://www.sfu.ca/~rvosa
FAB* lab: http://www.sfu.ca/~fabstar
Bio::Phylo: http://search.cpan.org/~rvosa/Bio-Phylo/
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