I usually use

if (i == 2)

in preference to

if (2 == i)

On occasion, I would switch things around when writing xUnit-type tests from scratch so as to follow the assertion convention of "expected" preceding "actual".

When adding to existing unit tests, I always follow the style I find.

No matter what, I always try to keep things consistent.

Today I checked out some code with a lot of "if (2 == i)" and started wondering:

• which style is more "popular" nowadays?
• is popularity language-dependent?

The latter probably because I am aware of why the "if (2 == i)" became common in the first place (C heritage) and because I see some languages go as far as disallowing assignments within conditions (e.g. Python).

I thought about downloading some sources:

apt-get source linux-source eclipse openoffice.org

expanding them and performing a quick grep:

grep --color --include=*.java --include=*.c -ERI \
    "if[[:space:]]*\([[:space:]]*[[:digit:]]+[[:space:]]==" .

or creating a quick "poll":

http://goo.gl/mod/ciMF

after a bit of searching and asking around, I am still not sure.

So I am asking you:

• which way to go?