Is good to call function in other function parameter?

Question

I suppose this:

public static string abc()
{
    return \"abc\";
}

Is better to call this function in this way:

string call         


        

Answer 1

Both are valid. However, out of experience I have concluded that the first option is more suitable for readability and ease of maintenance. I can't count how many times I have changed from the "compact" style to the first one as a help for a debugging session.

For example, this style makes it easy to check the correctness intermediate of an intermediate result:

string call = abc();
assert(!call.empty()); // Just an example.
Console.writeline(call);

Also, it helps to make the code more robust later, adding a conditional check before the subsequent action that checks call's value, for example if the design does not guarantee that the condition of the previous assert holds but you still need to check it.

string call = abc();
if (!call.empty())
{
    Console.writeline(call);
}

Note also that with this style you will be able to easily inspect the value of call in your debugger.