Python if Statements

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• The if... else Statement
• The if... elif... else Statement
• Nested if Statements

Introduction

In writing a program, we often need to execute some statements only if certain condition(s) hold. The Python compound statement if, which uses if, elif, and else clauses, allows us to conditionally execute blocks of statements.

Syntax

1if test expression:
2    statement(s)

The program evaluates the test expression and will execute the statement(s) only if the test expression is True. If the test expression is False, the statement(s) are not executed. The statement(s) reside within what we call a code block that is indented (by the Tab key). Note also that the test expression is typically a Boolean expression with comparison and/or logical operators and ends with a colon.

Example

1x = 2
2if x > 0:
3    print(f"{x} is a positive number.")
4print("This is no longer part of the if block.")

2 is a positive number.
This is no longer part of the if block.

In the above example, since x is positive, the test expression (x>0) evaluates to True and the code block (first print statement) is executed. The second print statement falls outside the if code block since it is not indented and is therefore always executed.

The if... else Statement

The if... else statement evaluates the test expression and will execute the if code block only when the test expression is True. If the expression is False, the else code block is executed instead. Both code blocks are indented with the tab key. The syntax is as follows:

Syntax

1if test expression:
2    if code block
3else:
4    else code block

Example

1x = 2
2if x >= 0:
3    print(f"{x} is a non-negative number.")
4else:
5    print(f"{x} is a negative number.")

2 is a non-negative number.

The test expression does not need to be a Boolean expression. It can be any Python expression that evaluates to either True or False.

Example

1y = []
2if y:
3    print(f"y is non-empty and is give by {y}.")
4else:
5    print(f"y is an empty list.")

y is an empty list.

In the above example, an empty list is used as the test expression and it evaluates to False. Indeed, False values include the following:

• the number zero (0)
• an empty string
• empty data structures (e.g. lists, tuples or dictionaries)
• keyword None

ADVERTISEMENT

The if... elif... else Statement

What if you are given a number and told to write a program that determines if it is positive, zero or negative and print out the result? The preceding if... else statement allows for only 2 possibilities. On the other hand, the if... elif... else statement allows for mutiple possibilities.

Syntax

1if test expression:
2    if code block
3elif test expression:
4    elif code block 1
5elif test expression:
6    elif code block 2
7    ...
8else:
9    else code block

The elif keyword is short for else if. The statement allows for multiple elif code blocks. If the condition for if is False, it checks the condition of the next elif block and so on. If all the conditions are False, the last else code block is executed.

Example

1x = 0
2if x > 0:
3    print(f"{x} is a positive number.")
4elif x < 0:
5    print(f"{x} is a negative number.")
6else:
7    print(f"{x} is zero.")

0 is zero.

Example

 1score = 82
 2if score >= 85:
 3    print(f"You get an 'A' for your score of {score}.")
 4elif score >= 75:
 5    print(f"You get a 'B' for your score of {score}.")
 6elif score >= 65:
 7    print(f"You get a 'C' for your score of {score}.")
 8elif score >= 55:
 9    print(f"You get a 'D' for your score of {score}.")
10else:
11    print(f"You fail your exam! with a score of {score}.")

You get a 'B' for your score of 82.

In the above example, the grade ‘A’ is awarded to a score of 85 and above, the grade ‘B’ is awarded to a score of between 75 and 84, inclusive and so on. Note that we had used f-strings in the above example.

Nested if Statements

We can have an if... else statement inside another if...elif...else statement, or if... elif... else statement inside another if... else statement, etc. These are called nested if statements. Any number of these statements can be nested inside one another with the appropriate indentation. As such, nested if statements can become rather confusing and should be avoided unless absolutely necessary.

The following code does the same as a previous example of determining if a given number is positive, negative or zero. In that example, we had used the if... elif... else statement. In this example, we use nested if statements.

Example

1x = 0
2if x < 0:
3    print(f"{x} is a negative number.")
4else:
5    if x > 0:
6        print(f"{x} is a positive number.")
7    else:
8        print(f"{x} is zero.")

0 is zero.