6.5: Compound Statement

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The Compound Statement

Often, we will want to have more than a single statement within our if statements. Some texts refer to this as a compound statement. The brace symbols – the opening { and the closing } - are used to create a compound statement. For example:

if(expression)
{
  statement;
  statement;
}
else
{
  statement;
  statement;
}

You can indeed use the braces with only a single statement, and many programmers do that just to be consistent with all of their code. Just be aware that some people refer to this as a compound statement. Others simply refer to it as a block of code. Either is correct, you just need to understand the terminology.

Other Uses of a Compound Statement

"A compound statement is a unit of code consisting of zero or more statements. It is also known as a code block or a block of code. The compound statement allows a group of statements to become one single entry. You used a compound statement in your first program when you formed the body of the function main. All C++ functions contain a compound statement known as the function body.

A compound statement consists of an opening brace, optional declarations, definitions, and statements, followed by a closing brace. Although all three are optional, one should be present."¹

Definitions

Compound Statement: A unit of code consisting of zero or more statements.
Block: Another name for a compound statement.

Footnotes

1 Behrouz A. Forouzan and Richard F. Gilberg, Computer Science A Structured Approach using C++ Second Edition (United States of America: Thompson – Brooks/Cole, 2004) 100.