shall brackets be used for one line conditional statements? [closed]

Question

Apart from readability, are there any differences in performance or compile-time when a single-line loop / conditional statement is written with and without brakets?

For example, are there any differences between following:

if (a > 10) 
    a = 0;

and

if (a > 10)
{
    a = 0;
}

?

Answer 1

Of course there is no difference in performance. But there is a difference in the possibility of introducing errors:

if (a>10)
  a=0;

If somebody extends code and writes later,

if (a>10)
  a=0;
  printf ("a was reset\n");

This will always be printed because of the missing braces. Some people request that you always use braces to avoid this kind of errors.

Answer 2

Contrary to several answers, there is a finite but negligible performance difference at compile time. There is zero difference of any kind at runtime.