Empty branch of conditional¶
ID: cpp/empty-block
Kind: problem
Security severity:
Severity: recommendation
Precision: very-high
Tags:
- reliability
- readability
Query suites:
- cpp-security-and-quality.qls
Click to see the query in the CodeQL repository
This rule finds empty blocks that occur as a branch of a conditional or as a loop body. This may indicate badly maintained code or a defect due to an unhandled case. It is common to find commented-out code in the empty body. Commented-out code is discouraged and is a source of defects and maintainability issues.
Recommendation¶
If the conditional or loop is useless, remove it.
If only the else-branch of an if statement is empty, omit it. If the then-branch is empty, invert the sense of the condition.
Example¶
void f(int i) {
if (i == 10); //empty then block
... //won't be part of the if statement
if (i == 12) {
...
} else { //empty else block, most likely a mistake
}
}