<!DOCTYPE qhelp PUBLIC

"-//Semmle//qhelp//EN"

"qhelp.dtd">

<qhelp>

<overview>

<p>

Assigning a local variable in a return statement is useless, since the local variable will go out

of scope immediately and its new value is lost.

</p>

</overview>

<recommendation>

<p>

Closely examine the code in question to understand the original intention. For instance, the assignment

may originally have referred to a variable from another scope that accidentally was shadowed due to

a renaming; in this case, perform another renaming to make it visible again. Or maybe the assignment

was meant to assign to a property of the receiver object and the programmer inadvertently forgot to

qualify it by <code>this</code>; address this by providing the required qualification. Finally, the

assignment may simply be unnecessary, in which case it can be removed.

</p>

</recommendation>

<example>

<p>

In the following example, the <code>getName</code> method of <code>Person</code> contains a useless

assignment to <code>name</code>.

</p>

<sample src="examples/ReturnAssignsLocal.js" />

<p>

The assignment serves no obvious purpose and should be removed:

</p>

<sample src="examples/ReturnAssignsLocalGood.js" />

</example>

<references>

<li>Wikipedia: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_store">Dead store</a>.</li>

</references>

</qhelp>