Re: Whether to return String "True" or "False" instead of 1 or 0

CrazyKarma wrote:
> One of the developers had written a function such that it returns a
> string value as either "True" or "False", which was again used in a
> sql context with a decode statement wrapped around it to do something
> else.
>
>
> During code review, I called it out and said that its better to have
> that return a int as 1 or 0, so that its flexiable in future to return
> more values and also put to a comment to say what each value stands
> for.
>
> Developer disagreed saying that his method is more readable and either
> way we will have to change the code if we have to make it return
> different values in future.
>
> I agree that the code is more readable but extent of change presuming
> that the data fetched may be different in future is less with my
> change.
>
> also believe string equality checks is exposed to case sensitivity
> issues.
>
> what do you all think?
>

IMO, the data should represent the attribute. Is the attribute a true or false value? If so, the data should represent that. What does 0 or 1 mean? If you truly mean true and false, then using 0 or 1 could be misleading in certain contexts, i.e. implying that 1 > 0 when we know that TRUE is not greater than FALSE.

HTH,
Brian

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Brian Peasland
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