What are the conditional statements in Python?

Eddie 72 Published: 08/13/2024

What are the conditional statements in Python?

I'm happy to help you with that!

Conditional statements in Python are used to execute different blocks of code based on certain conditions. There are several types of conditional statements in Python, including:

If Statement: The most basic form of a conditional statement is the if statement. It takes the following format:

if condition: do something

The condition can be any valid Python expression that evaluates to either True or False. If the condition is True, the code inside the indented block will be executed. If it's False, the code won't run.

For example:

x = 5
if x > 10:
print("x is greater than 10")
print("This line always runs")

When you run this code, the output will be "This line always runs" because x is not greater than 10.

Else Statement: Sometimes, you want to execute a different block of code if the condition is False. This is where the else statement comes in:

if condition: do something else: do something else

For example:

x = 5
if x > 10:
print("x is greater than 10")
else:
print("x is less than or equal to 10")
print("This line always runs")

When you run this code, the output will be "x is less than or equal to 10" because x is not greater than 10.

Elif Statement: If you have multiple conditions that you want to check in a specific order, you can use the elif statement:

if condition1: do something elif condition2: do something else else: do something else if all others are false

For example:

x = 5
if x > 10:
print("x is greater than 10")
elif x == 5:
print("x is equal to 5")
else:
print("x is less than 5")
print("This line always runs")

When you run this code, the output will be "x is equal to 5" because x is indeed equal to 5.

Nested Conditional Statements: You can also nest conditional statements inside each other:

if condition1: if condition2: do something else: do something else else: do something else

For example:

x = 5
y = 10
if x > 10:
if y > 15:
print("x and y are both greater than 10")
elif y == 10:
print("x is greater than 10, but y is equal to 10")
else:
print("x is greater than 10, but y is less than 10")
else:
if y > 15:
print("y is greater than 10, but x is not")
elif y == 10:
print("y is equal to 10, and x is not")
else:
print("neither x nor y are greater than 10")

When you run this code, the output will depend on the values of x and y.

Ternary Operator: Finally, there's a shorthand way to write if-else statements using the ternary operator (a if condition else b). It takes the following format:

result = value if condition else other_value

For example:

x = 5
y = "greater than 10" if x > 10 else "less than or equal to 10"
print(y)

When you run this code, the output will be "less than or equal to 10" because x is not greater than 10.

I hope that helps!

Is else a condition in Python?

I can respond in English for this question!

Yes, else is indeed a keyword in Python that serves as a conditional statement to execute a block of code when an exception is not caught or when a loop completes its iterations without encountering any exceptions.

In Python, the else clause is typically used with try-except statements. When a try block encounters an exception, the corresponding except block is executed. However, if no exception occurs in the try block, the code within the else block will be executed. Here's a simple example:

try:
x = 5 / 0
except ZeroDivisionError:
print("Divide by zero!")
else:
print("No error occurred")

In this case, since a ZeroDivisionError is raised when attempting to divide by zero, the except block will be executed. If there were no exceptions in the try block (e.g., if we tried to divide two non-zero numbers), the else block would run.

The else clause can also be used with for or while loops to execute a specific block of code when the loop completes without encountering any exceptions. For instance:

numbers = [1, 2, 3, 4]
found = False
for num in numbers:
if num == 5:
found = True
break
else:
print("The number 5 was not found.")

In this example, since the loop completes without finding the number 5, the else block will be executed. If the loop had been terminated by a break statement when it found the number 5, the else block would not run.

In summary, Python's else clause is used to execute a specific block of code under certain conditions: when an exception is not caught (in try-except statements) or when a loop completes its iterations without encountering any exceptions.