How does one avoid a large number (between 20 and 30) of embedded "if" statements in Ruby?

Question

I've got a massive script with about 20 embedded if statements (Yay!) that is used to parse through a data file. And in a sense, that's correct because the script should not continue operating if any of those evaluations fail.

But my gut says there's a more elegant way to accomplish the same thing. I'm familiar with the statemachine plugin for rails, but that seems to be overkill (it seems to be overkill).

Any chance there's a slightly more elegant way to reduce the number of embedded 'ifs' either through a workflow, or some other way?

Answer 1

Just refactor the code and split parts of the conditional sections out to different functions. It will not reduce the nested if deepths but make it more readable.

Otherwise there is very little to say as it is a very generic question.

Answer 2

This is mostly code specific, but I can suggest 2 ways:

1. case .. when .. then .. structure.
2. Effectively using send or eval methods.

Answer 3

One approach is to construct a hash or array in which the contents are Procs that each encapsulate a given conditional. Then you can loop through the procs and test your data against each one.

Answer 4

reverse the conditions of the if statements and leave the particular function(if you can). This way you get a lot of if's behind each other instead of nested

Answer 5

Use haml :P

(so you dont need to end the if tags..)