Python Tutorial - Decision Control

1. if…else Statement
2. if Statement
3. if...else Statement
4. if...elif...else Statement
5. Nested if Statements

In this section, you will learn the decision-making construct in Python programming. The most used decision construct is an if…else construct.

if…else Statement

The if…else statement is used when you have two blocks of statements and you want to execute only one based on some conditions. In Python programming, mostly if…elif…else is used as a decision-making construct.

if Statement

In if statement you have only one block of statements and this block is executed only when the condition is True, ignored when the condition is False.

Below is the syntax of if statement in Python:

if condition:
    statement(s)

The body of if statement in Python is not surrounded by curly braces, but instead, indentation is used. The end of the body is indicated by the first unintended line.

if Statement Example

Consider the following example in which if statement is used:

a = 24
if a % 2 == 0:
    print(a, "is an even number")
b = 23
if b % 2 == 0:
    print(b, "is an odd number")

24 is an even number

In this code, the variable a is assigned a value first and then condition in if statement is evaluated. It checks if a is an even number or not by taking the modulus of a with 2 and if the result of % (mod) is 0 then control enter in the body of if and the print statement is executed.

Then b is assigned an odd number 23. The condition in if statement is not True, therefore print(b, "is an odd number") will not be executed.

if...else Statement

The following is the syntax of an if...else statement:

if condition:
    block of statements
else:
    block of statements

In if...else, if the if the condition is True, the corresponding block of statements is executed, otherwise the block of statements under else part will be executed.

if...else Statement Example

Consider the code below in which if...else is used:

a = 44
if a % 2 == 0:
    print(a, "is an even number")
else:
    print(a, "is an odd number")

44 is an even number

Here if a is even, it will print a is an even number, otherwise it will print a is an odd number.

if...elif...else Statement

The following is the syntax of if...elif...else statement:

if condition:
    block of statements
elif condition:
    block of statements
else:
    block of statements

elif stands for else if and it could be used multiple times in this if..elif..else construct.

When the condition under if becomes False, the condition of elif will be checked and so on. When all the conditions of if and elif are False, else part will be executed.

if...elif...else Statement Example

Consider the code below in which we have used if...elif...else statement which checks multiple conditions:

a = -34
if a > 0:
    print("Number is Positive")
elif a < 0:
    print("Number is Negative")
else:
    print("Number is zero")

Number is Negative

Nested if Statements

In Python, you can have an if inside another if statement. This is called nested if statement.

You can nest any type of if statement for any number of times. But it is not a good practice to use nested if structures in programming languages as the readability of the program becomes worse.

Nested if Statements Example

In the following code, nested if structure is used to find the largest number:

T = 52

if T > 25:
    if T < 50:
        print("Temperature is higher than 25 but lower than 50")
    else:
        print("Temperature is higher than 50")
else:
    if T < 0:
        print("Temperature is lower than 0")
    else:
        print("Temperature is higher than 0 but lower than 25")

Temperature is higher than 50