What does the syntax <pre class="prettyprint"><code>if (1) {} </code></pre> do? I can't find documentation for this syntax and 1 is not being treated as a boolean. Am I right?.

Technically, the <code>if (1)</code> does nothing interesting, since it's an always-executed if-statement. One common use of an <code>if (1)</code> though is to wrap code you'd like to be able to quickly disable, say for debugging purposes. You can quickly change an <code>if (1)</code> to <code>if (0)</code> to disable the code.

What does "if (1)" do?

Tags:

perl

What does the syntax

if (1) {}

do?

I can't find documentation for this syntax and 1 is not being treated as a boolean. Am I right?.

427

asked Jul 08 '13 15:07

user2521358

1 Answers

Technically, the if (1) does nothing interesting, since it's an always-executed if-statement.

One common use of an if (1) though is to wrap code you'd like to be able to quickly disable, say for debugging purposes. You can quickly change an if (1) to if (0) to disable the code.