ERC-20 says transfer and transferFrom should allow 0-value transfer and fire Transfer event. What's the main benefit of allowing 0-value transfer? Is there any use case?
Usually you will not see a hardcoded transfer(0).
But there are use cases like transfer(b-c). If 0 value transfers were not allowed and generated an exception, developers would have to explicitly handle the case when c equals b. Allowing 0 value transfers is safe from bugs, but disallowing them can create more work for developers, and standards should be easy to use correctly.
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1Hard to think someone doing that without knowing in detail what he is transferring. At least knowing c >= b... – Rick Park Jan 18 '19 at 9:24
There's no reason to prevent it. If you want to transfer 0 tokens it is meaningless operation but it doesn't produce any harm. You will be paying the transaction fee.
For example it is allowed to transfer 0 ethers. It doesn't make much sense but you still have to pay the transaction fee. They are used to override stuck transactions with lowers fees.
