Using function arguments as local variables

Question

Something like this (yes, this doesn\'t deal with some edge cases - that\'s not the point):

int CountDigits(int num) {
    int count = 1;
             


        

Answer 1

My team coding standard recommends against this because it can get out of hand. To my mind for a function like the one you show, it doesn't hurt because everyone can see what is going on. The problem is that with time functions get longer, and they get bug fixes in them. As soon as a function is more than one screen full of code, this starts to get confusing which is why our coding standard bans it.

The compiler ought to be able to get rid of the redundant variable quite easily, so it has no efficiency impact. It is probably just between you and your code reviewer whether this is OK or not.