Jason Bock

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Bewildering Code

Just sit back and ponder this code for a while:

StringBuilder query = new StringBuilder();
query.Append(string.Format("//{0}[", "ArrayOf" + Result.Name));

So it’s creating a StringBuilder … but then it decides to use a string.Format() call instead of a couple of Append() calls on the StringBuilder … um … OK … but then there’s a concatenation within the Format() call.

The ugliness … it hurts … it hurts so bad!

Now, there’s more code to this story (i.e. there’s a good reason to use StringBuilder), but for all that is good in this world, why not just do it this way:

StringBuilder query = new StringBuilder();
query.Append("//ArrayOf[").Append(Result.Name);

Now, to be fair, I’m not sure that this would actually perform better. Tests would have to verify that. But I’m guessing that it would, and frankly it just reads better this way.

Published: 11.01.2007 07:50:34 AM CST