Yet about braces. PEP 7 implicitly forbids breaking the line before an opening brace. An opening brace should stay at the end the line of the outer compound statement. if (mro != NULL) { ... } else { ... } if (type->tp_dictoffset != 0 && base->tp_dictoffset == 0 && type->tp_dictoffset == b_size && (size_t)t_size == b_size + sizeof(PyObject *)) { return 0; /* "Forgive" adding a __dict__ only */ } But the latter example continuation lines are intended at the same level as the following block of code. I propose to make exception for that case and allow moving an open brace to the start of the next line. if (type->tp_dictoffset != 0 && base->tp_dictoffset == 0 && type->tp_dictoffset == b_size && (size_t)t_size == b_size + sizeof(PyObject *)) { return 0; /* "Forgive" adding a __dict__ only */ } This adds a visual separation of a multiline condition from the following code.