Difference of changing the if statement Vs adding return inside of the statement

[JudgeXyn]

Often I will pause the lesson to see if I can use a bit of critical thinking to figure out the steps that the instructor will take ahead of time. I was doing so with stopping the issue of reselecting a unit instead of using the spin action. I thought the answer would be to add an && unit != selectedunit inside of the if. I attempted it and it seemed like the code was working properly, but when I resumed the video the instructor instead did another if statement inside of the already created one(at about 10:35 in the video), to return. So I’m curious what exactly are the differences between those two options? Is it minor and does roughly the same thing? I often overlook things, not having a huge background in these kinds of things so I could definitely be missing something large. Thanks for your time.

[Brian_Trotter]

Can you pop in the two if statements in question? I don’t have the codebase completely memorized.
I will say that there are often many paths to the same goal.

[bixarrio]

It’s this here

private bool TryHandleUnitSelection()
{
    if (Input.GetMouseButtonDown(0))
    {
        Ray ray = Camera.main.ScreenPointToRay(Input.mousePosition);
        if (Physics.Raycast(ray, out RaycastHit raycastHit, float.MaxValue, unitLayerMask))
        {
            if (raycastHit.transform.TryGetComponent<Unit>(out Unit unit))
            {
                if (unit == selectedUnit) // <-- HERE
                {
                    // Unit is already selected
                    return false;
                }
                
                SetSelectedUnit(unit);
                return true;
            }
        }
    }

    return false;
}

In this case the solution is perfectly fine.

[JudgeXyn]

Awesome. Is there any difference at all between the two options?

[Brian_Trotter]

Behind the scenes and performance wise, no. It’s a matter of preference. Some prefer blocking and exiting a method early, and leaving the code less indented. Others prefer a positive action with the code further indented.

There are times where the if(true) {} are necessary, where there is code that must run, but also must wait until after the clause has been run. Otherwise, the net effect is the same.

[bixarrio]

Also, if this was in a loop (eg. we used Physics.RaycastAll), Hugo’s way would immediately exit the loop when we found the unit, while the other way would continue to check