Odd coding style of IF block in PL/SQL

Question

Where I work, I see lot's of the following type of code written in PL/SQL,

IF a>b THEN
  NULL;
ELSE
  c:=a*b;
END IF;

I find this odd because a C equivalent would look like this,

if (a>b)
{

}
else
{
  c=a*b;
}

And the above type of code has been frowned upon as bad style in a C forum that I know when posted by newbies. As PL/SQL doesn't allow empty blocks and always require a NULL statement, does this type of coding style bring any advantages w.r.t readability or is it just a matter of preference?. FWIW, the guy who coded PL/SQL with the above style certainly seems to be a seasoned coder. Is there any advantage compared to the following?

IF a<=b THEN
  c:=a*b;
END IF;

Answer 1

It seems that a <= b will not be true if any part is null. That's why these two statements are different.

In the first case, c = a*b will run if a is null. In the second case, it won't. Unless you know for certain that a and b are not null, the equivalent statement would instead be:

IF a<=b or (a is null) or (b is null) THEN
  c:=a*b;
END IF;

Answer 2

Where I work, we do not like to have the empty blocks, so we always code ours like your bottom example, without the ELSE IF. I think it's largely a matter of preference though, but I would rather reverse the IF statement as you did at the end to avoid the empty block; I find the code easier to read.