do {…} while(false)

Question

I was looking at some code by an individual and noticed he seems to have a pattern in his functions:

 function()
{
 

        

Answer 1

It's simple: Apparently you can jump out of the fake loop at any time using the break statement. Furthermore, the do block is a separate scope (which could also be achieved with { ... } only).

In such a situation, it might be a better idea to use RAII (objects automatically destructing correctly when the function ends). Another similar construct is the use of goto - yes, I know it's evil, but it can be used to have common cleanup code like so:

 function()
{
 

 


 

 error:

 
}

(As an aside: The do-while-false construct is used in Lua to come up for the missing continue statement.)