A checkpatch modification was suggested privately about braces around an if test like if (foo) ; so I thought I'd see how many of these possibly pointless if tests exist. There aren't many. Here are a couple in sibyte: Maybe this should be documented as: "well, don't know what to do here" $ cat if_semi.cocci @@ expression e; @@ * if (e) ; $ spatch --very-quiet -sp-file if_semi.cocci . diff -u -p ./arch/mips/sibyte/common/cfe_console.c /tmp/nothing/arch/mips/sibyte/common/cfe_console.c --- ./arch/mips/sibyte/common/cfe_console.c +++ /tmp/nothing/arch/mips/sibyte/common/cfe_console.c @@ -22,8 +22,6 @@ static void cfe_console_write(struct con if (str[i] == '\n') { do { written = cfe_write(cfe_cons_handle, &str[last], i-last); - if (written < 0) - ; last += written; } while (last < i); while (cfe_write(cfe_cons_handle, "\r", 1) <= 0) @@ -33,8 +31,6 @@ static void cfe_console_write(struct con if (last != count) { do { written = cfe_write(cfe_cons_handle, &str[last], count-last); - if (written < 0) - ; last += written; } while (last < count); }