----- Original Message ----


>Or put another way, what if  there was a outer IF not shown
> above, and ELSE was meant to be part of it,  not the IF shown.  How would=
 you
> then end the IF shown so that the ELSE  would not be part of it?
>=20
> For example:
>=20
>   if  (outer_condition)
>       if (inner_condition) count=3D0; //TRUE  case of outer IF
>     else
>        do_something();               //FALSE case of  outer IF

>From the link I gave you:

"An else always matches the nearest previous unmatched if; braces may be us=
ed to=20
override this when necessary, or for clarity."

> How do you "end" the second IF so that the ELSE belongs to the  first IF?=
 =20

It's not really a problem with the second IF but with your lack of understa=
nding=20
of what constitutes the "true statement" of the first IF.

> if what you're saying above is true, then the only way to do  this is to =
put=20
>the
> second IF inside brackets? =20

Yes, that's exactly right.

To get the behaviour you want you need this:

if(outer_condition)
{
    if(Inner_conditional) count =3D 0;
}
else
  do_someting();


> I suppose that's at least  consistant, but just
> asking for easily made mistakes.

Not if you know what you are doing.  :-)

>  Worse, what I  wrote above would not be
> interpreted as intended, but would be perfectly  legal and not generate a=
ny
> compile error.

Indeed, but who's fault is that ?  You wrote valid C and that's really all =
the=20
compiler can check for.  If your C code doesn't
do what you expected it to do then it's because you don't understand the C=
=20
syntax and that's not the compiler's fault ! ;-)

> This is why it seemed  logical that the ";" would end the inner IF.

It's not logical to an experienced C coder :-)

> But if
> what you're saying  is true (I expect it is, as I said, I'm no C whiz), i=
t's
> hard to imagine what  was going thru K&R's minds when they designed the
> syntax.
>=20
> This  would be yet another reason to religiously use brackets in  IF
> statements.  That's probably why I never bumped into this in real  code.

I often use extra brackets and my trick is to type all the brackets and=20
semicolons first, so that in your case above I would type this first:

if()
{
       if()   ;
}
else
{
;
}

Then I go back and fill in the statements and remove any unneeded pairs of=
=20
brackets.  Use of a consistent layout style also helps avoid problems.
=20
PeterO

--=20
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