Thread: creating variables inside an if statement

hello friends,

is it a good or a bad technique to create variables inside an if statement?

for example

i have

Code:

if (choice == something){

     here is one program
}
else{

   here is another program
}

}

there are two different programs, each of them has different variables, should i declare them before the first if statement or should i declare each of them in its own if statement?

thanks in advance

thanks for your answer kmdv

one last question, if there are similar variables in both programs, is it better to put them out of the if statement or it really doesn't matter?