The "unexpected ++" error in jslint

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What is the best practice for that then?

Jslint explains that it “adds confusion”. I don’t see it really…

EDIT: The code, as requested:

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31 thoughts on “The "unexpected ++" error in jslint”

  1. Personally, I prefer to put statements such as i++ on a line by themselves. Including them as part of a larger statement can cause confusion for those who aren’t sure what the line’s supposed to be doing.

    For example, instead of:

    value = func(i++ * 3);

    I would do this:

    value = func(i * 3);
i++;

    It also means people don’t have to remember how i++ and ++i work, and removes the need to apply quite so many preference rules.

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  2. The longstanding best practice:
    Use i += 1 instead, following jslint’s advice.

    As for why it is a better practice than ++, according to Crockford:

    The increment ++ and decrement -- operators make it possible to write in an extremely terse style. In languages such as C, they made it possible to write one-liners that: for (p = src, q = dest; !*p; p++, q++) *q = *p; Most of the buffer overrun bugs that created terrible security vulnerabilities were due to code like this. In my own practice, I observed that when I used ++ and --, my code tended to be too tight, too tricky, too cryptic. So, as a matter of discipline, I don’t use them any more.

    Edit: Included comment from Nope as this answer continues to get views. Please continue to upvote his comment as well 🙂

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  4. To avoid confusion, and possible problems when using minifiers, always wrap parens around the operator and its operand when used together with the same (+ or -).

    var i = 0, j = 0;
alert(i++ +j);

    This adds i and j (and increments i as a side effect) resulting in 0 being alerted.

    But what is someone comes along and moves the space?

    var i = 0, j = 0;
alert(i+ ++j);

    Now this first increments j, and then adds i to the new value of j, resulting in 1 being alerted.

    This could easily be solved by doing

    var i = 0, j = 0;
alert((i++) +j);

    Now this cannot be mistaken.

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  5. Please note that the ++ operator depends on position with respect to the prior/next variable and the newline / semicolon to determine order of operations.

    var a = 1;
var b = a++;
console.log(b); // b = 1
console.log(a); // a = 2

var a = 1;
var b = ++a;
console.log(b); // b = 2
console.log(a); // a = 2
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  6. There is something called a pre-increment: ++i and a post-increment i++
    and there is a difference:

    var i = 9;
alert(++i); //-> alerts 10

var j = 9;
alert(j++); //-> alerts 9
alert(j);   //-> alerts 10 now, as expected

var k = 9;
alert((k++)); //-> still alerts 9 even with extra parentheses
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  7. The real problem of the ++ operator is that it is an operator with side effects and thus it is totally opposed to the principle of functional programming.

    The “functional” way to implement i++ would be i = i + 1 where you explicitly reassign the variable with no side effects and then use it.

    The possibility of confusion is that ++ does two things by adding a value AND reassigning it to the variable.

    Reply

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