When can I omit curly braces in C?

Question

I\'m almost certain this has been asked before, but I can\'t find it being answered anywhere.

When can I omit curly braces in C? I\'ve seen brace-less return

Answer 1

An example:

int a[2][2] = {{1, 2}, {3, 4}};

you can use the valid equivalent form:

int a[2][2] = {1, 2, 3, 4};

Some verbose compilers may warn, but it is valid.

Note that for the if statement (same for the while, the for statement, ...) the {} are not omitted. They are just not requested. The if statement has this syntax:

if (expression) statement

If you want a multiple statement instead of a single statement you can use a compound statement which is surrounded {}.