Question

What is the best way to write a no-op statement in Delphi?

Take this code:

if a=b then
  SomeOldStatement
else
  AnotherStatement;

And say that you temporarily want to rem out SomeOldStatement.

Would you just go for this solution:

if a=b then
  //SomeOldStatement
else
  AnotherStatement;

Personally I don’t like the empty then section and would like to have something compilable in there…

if a=b then
  NoOp
  //SomeOldStatement
else
  AnotherStatement;

Answer 1

Not sure why you need anything there at all (e.g. I’m happy with “then else”).

But if you want something compilable there, I would do this:

if a=b then
  begin end
  //SomeOldStatement
else
  AnotherStatement;

An empty begin block is the best noop I know of in Delphi. It will produce no assembler code and thus no overhead.