Nested if-else behaviour without braces

Question

Consider the following unformatted nested if-else Java code

if (condition 1)
if (condition 2)
action 1;
else
action 2;

My ques

Answer 1

Block 1 is correct, in if else situations with no brackets the else is linked to the nearest if

if (condition 1)  
if (condition 2)
action 1;
else
action 2;

is the same as

if (condition 1)
    if (condition 2)
    action 1;
    else
    action 2;

also brackets are for the sake of understanding level, and ease. In larger if else statements, having no brackets makes error very common

Answer 2

Just my 2 cents for a better visual representation.

Everything inside braces will be completely ignored.

   if (false) {
        if (true)
            System.out.println("1");
        else
            System.out.println("2");
    }

Answer 3

You can try it and find that the else applies to the inner if:

http://ideone.com/iBorYi

This is a good reason not to write code like this. It's very hard to read and understand what is happening.

Answer 4

From the documentation:

The Java programming language, like C and C++ and many programming languages before them, arbitrarily decrees that an else clause belongs to the innermost if to which it might possibly belong.