Is there a difference in removing the curly braces from If statements in java

Question

While watching thenewbostons tutorial on basic java, he teaches us to do if statements like this.(Notice the curly Braces)

if("pie"== "pie"){
    System.out.println("Hurrah!");
}

So I tried removing the curly braces

if("pie"== "pie")
    System.out.println("Hurrah!");

And it still works! Since I'm new to java, I don't know why that works. And I want to know if removing(or adding) the curly braces give any benefits/disadvantages.

Answer 1

For a single statement it will remain same, but if you want to group more than one statement in the if block then you have to use curly braces.

if("pie"== "pie"){
    System.out.println("Hurrah!");
    System.out.println("Hurrah!2");
}

if("pie"== "pie")
    System.out.println("Hurrah!"); //without braces only this statement will fall under if
    System.out.println("Hurrah!2"); //not this one

You should see: Blocks in Java

A block is a group of zero or more statements between balanced braces and can be used anywhere a single statement is allowed. The following example, BlockDemo, illustrates the use of blocks:

class BlockDemo {
     public static void main(String[] args) {
          boolean condition = true;
          if (condition) { // begin block 1
               System.out.println("Condition is true.");
          } // end block one
          else { // begin block 2
               System.out.println("Condition is false.");
          } // end block 2
     }
}

(example from the above link)