Is there a best practice for when statements where...

# getting-started

[Ryan Smith]

Is there a best practice for when statements where the else is there to be exhaustive, but is a no-op?
e.g.

when {
    thing is OneThing -> // do something
    thing is SomethingElse -> // do something else
    else -> { /* no-op */ }
}

It doesn't exactly fit this case from the style guide especially since the app is still under development and there could be more cases:

Prefer using if for binary conditions instead of when

Is a bare return better? Or just sticking with no-op? Personal preference?

[Chris Lee]

in that specific example it depends on the domain of thing - if it is guaranteed to only be OneThing or SomethingElse, the second conditional can be replaced with the else clause. If the else is required to be exhaustive it should do something - throw an assertion or UnsupportedOperation, perhaps.
The no-op else statement is a code-smell.

[ephemient]

stylistically I prefer

else -> {} // no-op

but it's really equivalent to what you wrote. return isn't always.

[thanksforallthefish]

else -> Unit is also an option right? because sonar does not like no-op (don’t remember if comments prevent sonar analysis for triggering, but I don’t like “dummy” comments) and Unit is the middle ground that makes both me and Sonar not unhappy 😄

[Chris Lee]

if we’re writing a no-op because we believe that code-path can’t be hit, the resilient pattern would be

else -> { throw AssertionError("Invalid Thing") }

[ephemient]

error(“invalid") throws IllegalStateException and TODO("invalid") throws NotImplementedError, which are more specific and appropriate IMO

[Chris Lee]

agreed

[Ryan Smith]

Thank you all for your input! Sorry for replying so late - this thread got absolutely buried in my Slack and I missed all of your excellent feedback at the time