One of my colleagues pointed me at this blog post:
https://evuez.github.io/posts/cursed-elixir.html
This is a refactoring exercise, starting with this:
defmodule FooBar do
def foo(a) do
if a < 0 do
bar(a, -1)
else
bar(a, 1)
end
end
defp bar(a, b) do
IO.inspect(a * b)
end
end
Transform it into canonical Elixir.
The article linked to moves heavily into pipelines but there are alternatives, here this notes that if is an expression:
defmodule FooBar do
def foo(a) do
bar(a, (if a < 0, do: -1, else: 1))
end
defp bar(a, b) do
IO.inspect(a * b)
end
end
Also bar is symmetrical:
defmodule FooBar do
def foo(a) do
if a < 0, do: -1, else: 1 |> bar(a)
end
defp bar(a, b) do
IO.inspect(a * b)
end
end
Pattern matching and guards is also typical Elixir, more so than an if:
defmodule FooBar do
def foo(a) do
a
|> calculate()
|> bar(a)
end
defp calculate(a) when a < 0, do: -1
defp calculate(a), do: 1
defp bar(a, b) do
IO.inspect(a * b)
end
end
This is far more typical.
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