javascript - if, for, or while with an empty body, use empty braces instead of a semi-colon

Question

Using google closure compiler I get the following warning message:

WARNING - If this if/for/while really shouldnt have a body, use {}.

Here's what the documentation says:

This warning means that you have a semi-colon immediately following an if, for, or while statement. For example:

// Produces JSC_SUSPICIOUS_SEMICOLON warning:
if (true);
else alert('no');

Is this just a code convention thing or is {} better than ; for some reason?

Answer 1

This guards against things like:

if(condition);
{
    // oops, I really meant for this to be conditional.
    // now it always executes, regardless of condition.
}

The error raised forces you to explicitly put the empty {} before the ; so it's clear that that's what you intended.