Why do try..catch blocks require braces?

Question

While in other statements like if ... else you can avoid braces if there is only one instruction in a block, you cannot do that with try ... catch blocks: the compiler doesn\'t

Answer 1

Straight from the C++ spec:

try-block:
    try compound-statement handler-seq

As you can see, all try-blocks expect a compound-statement. By definition a compound statement is multiple statements wrapped in braces.

Have everything in a compound-statement ensures that a new scope is generated for the try-block. It also makes everything slightly easier to read in my opinion.

You can check it yourself on page 359 of the C++ Language Specification