Important Notice
The pages on this site contain documentation for very old MS-DOS software,
purely for historical purposes.
If you're looking for up-to-date documentation, particularly for programming,
you should not rely on the information found here, as it will be woefully
out of date.
Empty Statement
◄Simple Statement► ◄Contents► ◄Index► ◄Back►
Description
An empty statement exists whenever the Pascal syntax indicates
that a statement could exist but doesn't. Given this condition,
the compiler inserts an empty statement into the program. The
empty statement is a null action. Some empty statements are
harmless, but others are fatal. The following example illustrates
a harmless empty statement:
BEGIN
<statement>;
<statement>;
END
Because semicolons separate statements, the compiler inserts an
empty statement to follow the second semicolon. In this case, the
empty statement is harmless. It even prevents a common programming
error if another statement is added to the end of the block.
The following example illustrates a subtle bug introduced by an
empty statement:
IF input_incorrect THEN;
get_input;
The intent of get_input is obvious to a programmer; however, the
compiler understands the semicolon after THEN to indicate an empty
statement. To QuickPascal, this example means: if input_incorrect,
then do nothing; now get_input.