Remove 'else' after 'return' or 'raise'

[Дилян Палаузов]

... as it has no added value.

[Tim Graham]

Personally, I think the current code with elif has some readability benefits, at least in some places.

[Tomer Chachamu]

The generated CPython bytecode is usually the same, I see no benefit in applying this rule.

[Дилян Палаузов]

Skipping else after return, when it does not impact readability, leads to less code, and the resulting code is faster to read (by humans).

Currently it is unclear, when useless else shall be written.

[Tomer Chachamu]

I think you answered your own question there - it is used when it impacts readability (as judged by the original authors, who may not always agree with each other).

An if..elif..else.. block clearly lists mutually exclusive branches taken, and can be seen by looking at a single indentation level. if..return; if.. return;.. requires checking two indentation levels to ensure there's a return/raise ending every if.

For example, in the first hunk of the patch, the code is:

if bla:
   some code
if bla2:
   raise
elif bla3:
   raise
return val

After the change, it is:

if bla:
   some code
if bla2:
   raise
if bla3:
   raise
return val

A newline before if bla2 would improve readability, however the elif is already helping to show there is some similarity between if bla2 and if bla3, and that if bla has a different purpose.

[Дилян Палаузов]

python has no switch..case, but "elif", which is not the same. The readability criterion is very subjective one, e.g. the author might not have been aware that the 'else' was useless. As for

if x:
    return y
else:
    raise z

the else does not add for readability.

The first snippets of django/contrib/gis/gdal/srs.py or django/contrib/gis/geoip2/base.py I sent, have nothing to do with readability.

[Adam Johnson]

So I'm very slightly in favour of removing the useless 'elses', I also consider it a tiny bit more readable, and amazingly cpython *does* generate less code in this case (it's no faster though, it's just removing an extra two opcodes from a redundant return None):

In [6]: def foo():
   ...:     if foo:
   ...:         return 1
   ...:     else:
   ...:         return 2
   ...:

In [7]: def bar():
   ...:     if bar:
   ...:         return 1
   ...:     return 2
   ...:

In [8]: dis.dis(foo)
  2           0 LOAD_GLOBAL              0 (foo)
              2 POP_JUMP_IF_FALSE        8

  3           4 LOAD_CONST               1 (1)
              6 RETURN_VALUE

  5     >>    8 LOAD_CONST               2 (2)
             10 RETURN_VALUE
             12 LOAD_CONST               0 (None)
             14 RETURN_VALUE

In [9]: dis.dis(bar)
  2           0 LOAD_GLOBAL              0 (bar)
              2 POP_JUMP_IF_FALSE        8

  3           4 LOAD_CONST               1 (1)
              6 RETURN_VALUE

  4     >>    8 LOAD_CONST               2 (2)
             10 RETURN_VALUE

However I doubt it's worth anyone's time to go through Django removing them. Perhaps we can add it to the style guide now, close this ticket, and fix it as code gets modified in the future.

[Tim Graham]

The reporter already provided a patch and I created a ​PR. Opinions welcome.

[Tim Graham]

The patch has gone stale and the discussion on the PR didn't yield a strong consensus. I think the value of trying to enforce some guidelines around this style is minimal.