Is there an alternative to hyper-indented code?

Question

I often run into code that has to perform lots of checks and ends up being indented at least five or six levels before really doing anything. I am wondering what alternativ

Answer 1

You can get rid of some of the nesting by using guard clauses.

public String myFunc(SomeClass input)
{
    Object output = null;

    if(input == null) return "";

    SomeClass2 obj2 = input.getSomeClass2();
    if(obj2 == null) return "";

    SomeClass3 obj3 = obj2.getSomeClass3();
    if(obj3 == null || BAD_OBJECT.equals(obj3.getSomeProperty()))
    {
        return "";
    }

    SomeClass4 = obj3.getSomeClass4();
    if(obj4 == null) return "";

    int myVal = obj4.getSomeValue();
    if(BAD_VALUE == myVal) return "";

    String message = this.getMessage(myVal);
    if(MIN_VALUE <= message.length() &&
           message.length() <= MAX_VALUE)
    {
         //now actually do stuff!
         message = result_of_stuff_actually_done;
    }

    return output;
}

Change all of the return ""; statements that I used to illustrate the point to statements that throw a descriptive variety of Exception, though.