Re: [Libreoffice] [PATCH] Replace ENSURE_OR_* macros with regular code.

Hello Muthu,

On 23.01.2012 09:19, Muthu Subramanian K wrote:
> Before pushing, it would be great to understand the reason behind
> replacing the macro with regular code.

Sure thing. The reason why I replaced the ENSURE_OR_* macros with
regular code was the replacement of the OSL_ENSURE macro with SAL_WARN.
SAL_WARN needs a location parameter that could be added to the macros
parameter list. But the macros lump together debugging code and code
that is independent of the debug compilation and part of the regular
application execution (even if in some places this is only avoiding some
invalid application state).
I don't have enough understanding of the code yet to think of a better
replacement of macros where this would be applicable (exceptions,
rewrite the code in a way that the condition can't occur anymore) so
I've decided for now to drop the macros in favor of regular code.

> I believe the macro would help in improving code readability (and
> of course the code size) - in my understanding. Any particular
> reason, please?

I oppose to the "macros improve readability" argument, these macros
don't improve readability, they hide some regular execution from the
programmer. You would need to know the structure of the macro to
completely understand what the code is doing which could be a problem
for developers that are not aware of the side effects of the macros.
When reading the regular code the keywords that change the execution
would stand out while the macros could easily be skipped.

The code size shouldn't matter because after the preprocessor run the
output is exactly the same and I prefer code clarity over source code size.

regards Marcel Metz