How to avoid "if" chains?

You can use an && (logic AND):

if (executeStepA() && executeStepB() && executeStepC()){    ...}executeThisFunctionInAnyCase();

this will satisfy both of your requirements:

• executeStep<X>() should evaluate only if the previous one succeeded (this is called short circuit evaluation)
• executeThisFunctionInAnyCase() will be executed in any case

Just use an additional function to get your second version to work:

void foo(){  bool conditionA = executeStepA();  if (!conditionA) return;  bool conditionB = executeStepB();  if (!conditionB) return;  bool conditionC = executeStepC();  if (!conditionC) return;}void bar(){  foo();  executeThisFunctionInAnyCase();}

Using either deeply nested ifs (your first variant) or the desire to break out of "part of a function" usually means you do need an extra function.

Old school C programmers use goto in this case. It is the one usage of goto that's actually encouraged by the Linux styleguide, it's called the centralized function exit:

int foo() {    int result = /*some error code*/;    if(!executeStepA()) goto cleanup;    if(!executeStepB()) goto cleanup;    if(!executeStepC()) goto cleanup;    result = 0;cleanup:    executeThisFunctionInAnyCase();    return result;}

Some people work around using goto by wrapping the body into a loop and breaking from it, but effectively both approaches do the same thing. The goto approach is better if you need some other cleanup only if executeStepA() was successfull:

int foo() {    int result = /*some error code*/;    if(!executeStepA()) goto cleanupPart;    if(!executeStepB()) goto cleanup;    if(!executeStepC()) goto cleanup;    result = 0;cleanup:    innerCleanup();cleanupPart:    executeThisFunctionInAnyCase();    return result;}

With the loop approach you would end up with two levels of loops in that case.