Code Inspection: Unnecessary 'else' branch

Reports the else branches in if statements whose bodies always execute a terminating statement such as return or throw. Such branches are redundant and can be safely omitted.

In the following example, if the condition evaluates to true, $a is returned and the function execution is immediately terminated. The statement return $b; can only be reached if the condition evaluates to false, so after the quick-fix is applied, the code is simplified by unwrapping the else branch.

function returnGreater($a, $b) {
    if ($a >= $b) {
        return $a;
    } else {
        return $b;
    }
}

function returnGreater($a, $b) {
    if ($a >= $b) {
        return $a;
    }
    return $b;
}

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Last modified: 16 May 2022