Java if-if-else behavior

Question

I wrote a simple if/else in my code which worked fine. Later I added another level of if under the first, and was baffled by its behavior. Here\'

Answer 1

Is there a way to make the above code do what the indentation makes you expect without adding braces?

if (a)
    if (b)
        System.out.println("a=true, b=true");
    else;
else
    System.out.println("a=false");

else; will definitively finish the innermost if.

I would like to note that, if I ever came across this code in production, I would hunt through the commit logs until I found out who wrote it. This is absolutely an unacceptable thing to do. but it answers the quoted question