Short-Circuit Evaluation in N4JS

Short-circuit evaluation is a popular feature of many programming languages and also part of N4JS. In this post, we show how the control-flow analysis of the N4JS-IDE deals with short-circuit evaluation, since it can have a substantial effect on the data flow and execution of a program.

Short circuit evaluation is a means to improve runtime performance when evaluating boolean expressions. This improvement is a result of skipping code execution. The example above shows an if-statement whose condition consists of two boolean expressions that combine the values of 1, 2 and 3, and its control flow graph. Note that the number literals are placeholders for more meaningful subexpressions.

First the logical and, then the logical or gets evaluated: (1 && 2) || 3. In case the expression 1 && 2 evaluates to true, the evaluation of the subclause 3 will be skipped and the evaluation of the entire condition results to true. This skipping of nested boolean expressions is called short circuit evaluation.

However, instead of skipping expression 3, expression 2 might be skipped. In case condition 1 does not hold, the control flow will continue with condition 3 right away. This control flow completely takes places within the if-condition, whereas the former short circuit targets the then block.

The reasoning behind short circuit evaluation is that the skipped code does not affect the result of the whole boolean expression. If the left hand side of the logical or expression evaluates to true, the whole or expression also does. Only if the left hand side is false, the right hand side will be evaluated. Complementary, the right hand side of a logical and expression is skipped in case the left hand side evaluates to false.

Side Effects

Risks of short circuit evaluation might arise in case a subexpression has side effects: These side effects will not occur if the subexpression is skipped. However, a program that relies on side effects of expressions inside an if-condition can be called fragile (or adventurous). In any case it is recommended to write side-effect free conditions.

Have a look at the example above. In case variable i has a value of zero, the right hand side expression i++ is executed, otherwise, it is skipped. The side effect here is the post-increment the value of i. If the value of i is other than zero, this value will be printed out. Otherwise, the value will be incremented but not printed. The control flow shows this behavior with the edge starting at i and targeting the symbol console.

Loops

Loop conditions also benefit from short circuit evaluation. This is important to know when reasoning about the all possible control flow paths through the loop: Each short circuit will introduce another path. Combining all of them makes data flow in loops difficult to understand in case of side effects in the subconditions.

Creative use of short circuit evaluation

Misusing short circuit evaluation can mimic if-statements by using expressions but without using the language feature of conditional expressions (i.e. condition() ? then() : else()). This could be used when if-statements should be executed e.g. when passing arguments to method calls, or when computing the update part of for-loops.

The picture above shows the two versions: the first uses an if-statement and the second uses an  expression statement. These two statements call the functions condition, then and end. Depending on the return value of condition, the function then is executed or not. Consequently, the printouts are either "condition then end" or "condition end", depending on the control flow.

The corresponding control flows are depicted on the right: The upper three lines refer to the if-statement, and the lower three lines to the expression statement. They reveal that the expression statement behaves similar to the if-statement. Note that the control flow edge in the last line that skips the nodes end and end() is never traversed since the logical or expression always evaluates to true.

The interested reader would find more details about the N4JS flow graphs and their implementation in the N4JS Design Document, Chapter: Flow Graphs.

by Marcus Mews