Dangling else problem

Dangling else problem is common problem that happens when using nested if statements with single line statement.

Following program introduces dangling else problem.

#include "../helpers/stdout.h"
 
int main(int argc, char const *argv[])
{
    if (true)
        if (false)
            print("Inner if");
    else
        print("where do I belong");
    return 0;
}

If we see the program, we should expect nothing to be printed. However, we see where do I belong when we execute the program. Why is that? It is because else statement becomes part of inner if statement.

To avoid this problem, we should explicitly use compound statements.