What is the 'Dangling Else' problem?
It is a logical bug that occurs when an 'else' statement inadvertently attaches to the wrong (usually the nearest) 'if' statement due to missing curly braces.
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More FAQs in Common Mistakes with Nested If-Else Statements
Deeply nested code is hard to read, hard to test, and requires high cognitive effort to track which 'else' belongs to which 'if'.
Yes. Even if the logic is only one line, using curly braces prevents future bugs when someone adds a second line without noticing the missing braces.
You can reduce nesting by using logical operators (&&, ||) to combine conditions, or by using Guard Clauses to return early for invalid states.
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