else or return?

Question

Which one out of following two is best wrt to performance and standard practice. How does .NET internally handles these two code snippets?

Code1

If(r         


        

Answer 1

They will both compile into the same IL for Release mode (there may be a few different Nop operands in Debug..) And as such will have no performance difference. This is totally up to how you and your team feel the code is easier to read.

I used to be in the camp against early exit, but now I feel it can make code much simpler to follow.

// C#
public static void @elseif(bool isTrue)
{
    if (isTrue)
        Process1();
    else
        Process2();
}
// IL
.method public hidebysig static void  elseif(bool isTrue) cil managed
{
  // Code size       15 (0xf)
  .maxstack  8
  IL_0000:  ldarg.0
  IL_0001:  brfalse.s  IL_0009
  IL_0003:  call       void elseif.Program::Process1()
  IL_0008:  ret
  IL_0009:  call       void elseif.Program::Process2()
  IL_000e:  ret
} // end of method Program::elseif


// C#
public static void @earlyReturn(bool isTrue)
{
    if (isTrue)
    {
        Process1();
        return;
    }
    Process2();
}
// IL
.method public hidebysig static void  earlyReturn(bool isTrue) cil managed
{
  // Code size       15 (0xf)
  .maxstack  8
  IL_0000:  ldarg.0
  IL_0001:  brfalse.s  IL_0009
  IL_0003:  call       void elseif.Program::Process1()
  IL_0008:  ret
  IL_0009:  call       void elseif.Program::Process2()
  IL_000e:  ret
} // end of method Program::earlyReturn