Why assignment before return?

This code-pattern appears many times in pgstatfuncs.c:

Datum
pg_stat_get_blocks_fetched(PG_FUNCTION_ARGS)
{Oid            relid = PG_GETARG_OID(0);int64        result;PgStat_StatTabEntry *tabentry;
if ((tabentry = pgstat_fetch_stat_tabentry(relid)) == NULL)    result = 0;else    result = (int64)
(tabentry->blocks_fetched);
PG_RETURN_INT64(result);
}


Why do we assign this to "result" and then return, why not just:if ((tabentry = pgstat_fetch_stat_tabentry(relid)) ==
NULL)   PG_RETURN_INT64(0);else    PG_RETURN_INT64(tabentry->blocks_fetched); 


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 Magnus Hagander
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