I was with you until the part where you decide to shrink the code size. That exercise reminds me of the insanity that is C obfuscation competition.

Rule one in writing code is that you will write it once. Rules two is that it will likely be read by others and yourself many times. Don’t make life miserable for others and your future self just to save a few keystrokes or make the code more “compact”.

I’ve worked with programmers who apparently believed that a unicorn loses a rainbow for every extra keystroke. That is a myth. Don’t buy it. ;)