Like most languages, C uses the keyword if to implement the decision control instruction. The general form of if statement looks like this:
if ( this condition is true )
execute this statement ;
The keyword if tells the compiler that what follows is a decision control instruction. The condition following the keyword if is always enclosed within a pair of parentheses. If the condition, whatever it is, is true, then the statement is executed. If the condition is not true then the statement is not executed; instead the program skips past it. But how do we express the condition itself in C? And how do we evaluate its truth or falsity? As a general rule, we express a condition using C’s ‘relational’ operators. The relational operators allow us to compare two values to see whether they are equal to each other, unequal, or whether one is greater than the other. Here’s how they look and how they are evaluated in C.
thisThe relational operators should be familiar to you except for the equality operator == and the inequality operator !=. Note that = is used for assignment, whereas, == is used for comparison of two quantities. Here is a simple program, which demonstrates the use of if and the relational operators.
/* Demonstration of if statement */
main( )
{
int num ;
printf ( "Enter a number less than 10 " ) ;
scanf ( "%d", &num ) ;
if ( num <= 10 )
printf ( "What an obedient servant you are !" ) ;
}
On execution of this program, if you type a number less than or equal to 10, you get a message on the screen through printf( ). If you type some other number the program doesn’t do anything. The following flowchart would help you understand the flow of control in the program.
