Also, even in C and C++, they don't indicate branching. You can place a brace block anywhere you can place a normal statement. You might use them in C++ just to delimit the extent of a RAII object. In C89 you might use a block to delay defining a variable until closer to its use, because variables can only be defined at the start of its block (although that no longer applies in C99). Conversely, though it's usually bad practice, you can use if statements and loops with individual statements.