How to make Ruby's N ends look better?

Question

As I write some scripts, I usually reach a point where my code looks like this :

         end
       end
     end
   end
 end
end

I don't know about you, but this look very ugly to me. Can something be done about this?

Answer 1

If those inner blocks do something easy to name (and maybe reusable?), why not refactor them into small separate functions ? Then you'd end up with much shorter sequences of end's.

Otherwise another approach is using Python :-)

Answer 2

Don't nest your code so much? Refactor to use more methods? Use blocks passed to other routines instead?

Generally speaking, deep nesting is an indicator that a method is getting too complex and should be broken up. It can help for implicit structural documentation too, by naming the inner compound statements according to their refactored methods.

Answer 3

The advice to break up into smaller pieces is good. But if you need a lot of nested blocks like that, you can label the end keywords with comments.

    end # End conditional statement
  end # End method declaration
end # End class declaration

Still ugly, but at least clearer.

The other options previously mentioned are preferable.

Answer 4

Try to use small, testable functions. Not only are your functions and more importantly logic easy to test, but your code becomes way more readable.

Answer 5

I have seen nested "{ }" blocks and 4-space soft tabs and:

end;end;end;end

I suppose this saves vertical space, but I don't recommend, The above comments on avoiding deep nesting and commenting your block-ending lines are the valid approaches. Maybe deep nesting is to avoid method call overhead for things that need speeding up, but readability almost always trumps that kind of "optimization"