Need help simplifying a nested if block

Question

I have the following block of code:

if (x > 5)
{
    if (!DateTime.TryParse(y, out z))
        break;
    if (w.CompareTo(z) == -1)
        break;
}

Where x is an integer, y is a string, z and w are DateTime variables. The reason for the break; is that whole block resides within a loop.

Is there any way this could be simplified to make it easier to read?

Answer 1

More important: use descriptive variable names for w, x, y, z (hopefully these names were just for your example):

You can also use the less than or greater than operators instead of CompareTo.

if (x > 5)
{
    bool isValidDate = DateTime.TryParse(y, out z);
    if (!isValidDate || z > w)
    {
        // comment like: stop processing if the current date 
        // is after the reference date, or if there was a parsing error
        break;
    }
}