break (inside while) accepts a value, but does nothing with it

[oprypin]

x = while true
  break ":)"
end
p x

$ ruby test.cr
":)"
$ crystal test.cr
nil

I'm not a Ruby programmer, but my expectations matched with Ruby's behavior.

If it's decided that the while loop shouldn't have a return value in this case, then break should not allow arguments.

[asterite]

Oh, I had no idea that the break inside a while gave it it's value. I always though it was nil.

I guess we can do this, but unless the condition is true and you break unconditionally, x will also get the type Nil (I think)

[yxhuvud]

I guess we can do this, but unless the condition is true and you break unconditionally, x will also get the type Nil (I think)

You could let it return the last statement inside the loop. Does that have any downside?

[david50407]

@yxhuvud default behavior with resulting nil is good for now, if we want to break with last value we can do

while x
  break something
end

it's more clearly than

while x
  something
  break # no notice for returning the 'something'
end