Empty If Body
ID |
kotlin.empty_if_body |
Severity |
low |
Remediation Complexity |
trivial |
Remediation Risk |
low |
Remediation Effort |
low |
Resource |
Reliability |
Language |
Kotlin |
Tags |
CWE:1071, empty, reliability |
Description
Reports if expressions whose then-block is empty and have no else branch.
An if (condition) { } evaluates the condition but performs no action, which is almost always a typo or the result of an incomplete refactoring.
Rationale
// Bad — empty then-block, nothing happens
if (user.isActive) { } // FLAW
// Bad — guard condition written but body forgotten
if (list.isNotEmpty()) { } // FLAW
// Good — non-empty then-block
if (user.isActive) { activate(user) }
// Good — empty then but has else branch (at least one path does something)
if (condition) { } else { fallback() }Remediation
Either fill in the missing body, or remove the if statement entirely if the condition was meant to be deleted. If an empty then-branch is intentional alongside an else branch, consider inverting the condition to eliminate the empty branch.