Mandatory use of braces

Question

As part of a code standards document I wrote awhile back, I enforce \"you must always use braces for loops and/or conditional code blocks, even (especially) if they\'re only one

Answer 1

Here are the unwritten (until now I suppose) rules I go by. I believe it provides readability without sacrificing correctness. It's based on a belief that the short form is in quite a few cases more readable than the long form.

• Always use braces if any block of the if/else if/else statement has more than one line. Comments count, which means a comment anywhere in the conditional means all sections of the conditional get braces.
• Optionally use braces when all blocks of the statement are exactly one line.
• Never place the conditional statement on the same line as the condition. The line after the if statement is always conditionally executed.

• If the conditional statement itself performs the necessary action, the form will be:

  for (init; term; totalCount++)
  {
      // Intentionally left blank
  }
  

No need to standardize this in a verbose manner, when you can just say the following:

Never leave braces out at the expense of readability. When in doubt, choose to use braces.