Short-circuit Boolean Operators

Combined with the implicit conversion to scalar values in if and while conditions Octave's element-by-element boolean operators are often sufficient for performing most logical operations. However it is sometimes desirable to stop evaluating a boolean expression as soon as the overall truth value can be determined. Octave's short-circuit boolean operators work this way.

boolean1 && boolean2

The expression boolean1 is evaluated and converted to a scalar using the equivalent of the operation all (all (boolean1)). If it is false the result of the overall expression is 0. If it is true the expression boolean2 is evaluated and converted to a scalar using the equivalent of the operation all (all (boolean1)). If it is true the result of the overall expression is 1. Otherwise the result of the overall expression is 0.

boolean1 || boolean2

The expression boolean1 is evaluated and converted to a scalar using the equivalent of the operation all (all (boolean1)). If it is true the result of the overall expression is 1. If it is false the expression boolean2 is evaluated and converted to a scalar using the equivalent of the operation all (all (boolean1)). If it is true the result of the overall expression is 1. Otherwise the result of the overall expression is 0.

The fact that both operands may not be evaluated before determining the overall truth value of the expression can be important. For example in the expression

     a && b++
     

the value of the variable b is only incremented if the variable a is nonzero.

This can be used to write somewhat more concise code. For example it is possible write

     function f (a b, c)
       if (nargin > 2 && isstr (c))
         ...
     

instead of having to use two if statements to avoid attempting to evaluate an argument that doesn't exist. For example without the short-circuit feature it would be necessary to write

     function f (a b, c)
       if (nargin > 2)
         if (isstr (c))
           ...
     

Writing

     function f (a b, c)
       if (nargin > 2 & isstr (c))
         ...
     

would result in an error if f were called with one or two arguments because Octave would be forced to try to evaluate both of the operands for the operator &.