Nested If (x) checks - Better way to write this?

Question

There are places where I check for valid pointers before I perform an operation with them; these checks can be nested pretty deeply sometimes.

For example, I have

if (a)
{
  if (a->b())
  {
    if (a->b()->c())
    {
      a->b()->c()->DoSomething();
    } 
  }
}

I really don't like the look of this. Is there a way to turn this into something more readable? Ideally,

if (a && a->b() && a->b()->c() )
{
 ...
}

would be great, but obviously would not work.

EDIT - nvm the example that I put up DOES work as everybody has pointed out. I did test it out to see if this works, but there was a bug in my code in my test. duh!

Answer 1

Why would the latter not work?

In C, && is a short-circuit operator, so it is evaluated from left to right, and if any evaluation is false, evaluation stops.

In fact, you could write:

a && a->b() && a->b()->c() && a->b()->c()->DoSomething();

Answer 2

Quoting from K&R¹:

Expressions connected by && or || are evaluated from left to right, and it is guaranteed that evaluation will stop as soon as the truth or falsehood is known.

Therefore the latter example will work perfectly, as WhirlWind has noted.

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¹The C Programming Language, Second Edition, Page 21.