[lokar]

Yeah, it simplifies later code, and is safer in the face of future changes.

Or put another way, it tightens the API/contract of that chunk of code to always return a valid string.

[lioeters]

That makes sense, with that "guard" at the top, the rest of the function can return the pointer anywhere. And I imagine the compiler will ensure the empty string literal is created only once. Good to know!