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kotlin: branch rule counts 'return' — inconsistent with java/swift/c siblings #2545
Description
Summary
Design question from the #1096 control corpus: kotlin's branch rule counts return. Every kotlin function contributes its returns to branch mass — the corpus's 3-planted-branch file records 8 (5 returns + if/else/when), and files with zero branch keywords record branch 3 from returns alone.
Question
Assembly counting call/ret as control transfers is defensible bare-metal morphology (ledgered, not filed). Kotlin counting return while java/swift/c/etc do not looks like an inconsistency rather than a decision — it makes kotlin structurally "hotter" than identical java in cross-language comparison.
If deliberate (early-return complexity signal?), a doc note settles it; if not, dropping return from the kotlin branch alternation aligns it with its siblings.
References
#1096 corpus ledger kotlin-return-in-branch; data/kotlin/expected_signals.json.
Activity
squid-protocol commentedon Aug 31, 2026
Batch-4 addendum: return-counts-as-branch is a 5-language family, not a kotlin quirk — apex, objective-c, powershell, and zig (pattern-confirmed:
...|try|catch|orelse|break|continue|return)) all countreturn, while java/swift/c/scala/dart/groovy do not. Whichever way the design question resolves, the split is currently arbitrary across siblings. Corpus evidence in each language'sexpected_signals.json.fix(standards): stop counting bare `return` as `branch` in 6 languages (
squid-protocol commentedon Sep 1, 2026
Both halves merged and re-baselined: engine (#2634 —
returnremoved frombranchin kotlin/apex/objective-c/powershell/solidity/zig, relocated tostructural_boundariesfor the 2 languages that had no other rule tracking it) and corpus (keyword-rosetta#19 — all 6 languages'branchnow matches planted intent, apex'sstate_mutationflux-weighting ripple confirmed and re-baselined).KEYWORD_ROSETTA_REFbumped,rosetta-auditdispatched on main against the new pin. Closing.fix(standards): assembly + agc_assembly `branch` counts decisions, no…
fix(standards): branch counts decisions -- not handlers, closing word…