title: C++: Empty if statement
body: <p>This is more of an entry level question, but I'm wondering if it's good practice to have an empty if statement.</p>
  
  <p>Consider this code:</p>
  
  <pre><code>void RabbitList::purge()
  {
      if(head == NULL)
      {
          //cout &lt;&lt; "Can't purge an empty colony!" &lt;&lt; endl;
      }
      else
      {
          //Kill half the colony
          for(int amountToKill = (getColonySize()) / 2; amountToKill != 0;)
          {
              RabbitNode * curr = head;
              RabbitNode * trail = NULL;
  
              bool fiftyFiftyChance = randomGeneration(2);
  
              //If the random check succeeded but we're still on the head node
              if(fiftyFiftyChance == 1 &amp;&amp; curr == head)
              {
                  head = curr-&gt;next;
                  delete curr;
                  --size;
                  --amountToKill;
              }
              //If the random check succeeded and we're beyond the head, but not on last node
              else if(fiftyFiftyChance == 1 &amp;&amp; curr-&gt;next != NULL)
              {
                  trail-&gt;next = curr-&gt;next;
                  delete curr;
                  --size;
                  --amountToKill;
              }
              //If the random check succeeded, but we're on the last node
              else if(fiftyFiftyChance == 1)
              {
                  trail-&gt;next = NULL;
                  delete curr;
                  --size;
                  --amountToKill;
              }
              //If the random check failed
              else
              {
                  trail = curr;
                  curr = curr-&gt;next;
              }
          }
          cout &lt;&lt; "Food shortage! Colony has been purged by half." &lt;&lt; endl;
      }
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>As you can see, the if statement on line 5 is currently commented out; this was more of a debug text and I don't want to send any feedback to the console anymore. I'm pretty sure it would be considered bad practice to have the if statement do nothing. I know I could have return;</p>
  
  <p>but since my return type is void it gives me an error. What if my return type is not void for example?</p>