Making the "else if" part of the outer statement according to language semantics?

Question

Say we have the following C statement:

if( cond) 
      if( cond) 
        stat
      else
        stat

where the 'else stat' is part of the inner if statement according to the language semantics. What would I need to do in order to make the 'else stat' be part of the outer if statement? To my knowledge, adding {} after the then and at the end of the if statement to separate them would work. Is this correct? Is there another way of doing this?

Answer 1

In this case you should use the compound statement

if( cond1 )
{
      if ( cond2 ) 
        stat;
}
else
{
    stat;
}

Another approach from the point of view of the C syntax but less readable and should not be used is the following

if( cond1 )
      if ( cond2 ) 
        stat;
      else
        ; // empty statement
else
      stat;

However such an approach can be used then the internal if contains another else if. For example

if( cond1 )
      if ( cond2 ) 
        stat;
      else if ( cond3 )
        stat;
      else
        ; // empty statement
else
      stat;

Or it can be made more readable the following way

if( cond1 )
      if ( cond2 ) 
      {
        stat;
      }
      else
      {
        ; // empty statement
      }
else
      stat;