Detecting superfluous "else"

[Paul Koning]

> On Jul 19, 2018, at 4:49 AM, U.Mutlu <um@mutluit.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> it makes me 'crazy' when I see such if-else constructs:
>  if (x)
>    return 7;
>  else
>    return 4;
> 
> (Of course in this case one better would use the shorthand "return x ? 7 : 4;", but that's not the issue here)
> 
> The 'else' is obviously superfluous/redundant, ie. unneeded at all:
>  if (x)
>    return 7;
>  return 4;
> 
> Is it possible to warn about such unneccessary occurances of "else"?
> If not, then I suggest to add a new warning code -Wsuperfluous-else or -Wredundant-else or so.

I don't see any reason to warn about that code.  It's perfectly valid, and in my view is clearer than the alternative.  I've written both but I most often write the "else" variant for the reason that it expresses the semantics explicitly.

Warnings are appropriate for code that is known to be a source of bugs, or where there is a reasonable chance that the intent of the programmer doesn't match what was actually written.  That's not the case here.

	paul