(b) No, that is not allowed by the coding standards for this course. You are required to use compound statements, as in the following.
if(x > 0)
{
y = 0;
}
else
{
y = x - 1;
}
One reason for that concerns what happens when you modify a program. Suppose you start with
if(m == n)
y = 1;
where there is no else part. Then you decide
to add another statement, to be done only when m and n
are equal. After modification, you have
if(m == n)
printf("m = n, so I am setting y = 1.\n");
y = 1;
But the body of an if-statement is one statement.
So statement y = 1; is done regardless of
whether m and n are equal. The indentation is misleading.
Requiring braces takes away the opportunity to make this
type of error.