Is there a neat way to organize uni-conditional code that exists at different sections of a program?

Question

For example, I'd like to have something like this:

If(condition) object.start();

// Do some unrelated processing

If(condition) object.stop();

As a simple example of what I would like to happen. Are there any language agnostic ways to organize this, especially as you have more conditional lines of code?

Answer 1

I suppose you're asking this because the condition is expensive or non-repeatable.

One typical solution would be to set a boolean variable in the first IF, and let the second IF check that boolean variable instead of re-executing the condition.

boolVar=false
if (condition) {
  boolVar=true
  object.start()
}
// do unrelated stuff
if (boolVar) {
  object.stop()
}

Another typical solution would be something like this :

if (condition) {
  object.start()
  doSomething()
  object.end()
} else {
  doSomething()
}

Don't be afraid of simple solutions, if they're good enough. :)