Conditional Statements | Page 1

Experiment/Practical 1: Conditional Statements

Name __________________________________________ R.No. __________________
Date ___________________ Section _______________

Practical Objectives/Learning Outcomes:

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

if clause
if - else statements
The nested if statements
The IF-ELSE-IF Ladder
The ! Operator
Hierarchy of operators - revisited
Working of all 3 logical operators :
Conditional operators

Activities
In-lab Exercises
Any Other

EL121 Computer Fundamentals

Remarks

Signature

Conditional Statements | Page 2

Theory
Conditional Statements are statements that check an expression then may or may not
execute a statement or group of statements depending on the result of the condition.
In C the following are the types of conditional statements:
The IF statement
The general form of the if statement is:
if (expression)
statement;
Where:
if is a reserve word in C
expression is relational or Boolean expression that evaluates to a TRUE (1) or FALSE
(0) value
statement may either be a single C statement or a block of C statements.
The general form of the if statement with block of statements is:
if (expression)
{
statement_sequence;
}
In an if statement, if the expression evaluates to TRUE (1), the statement or the block of
statements that forms the target of the if statement will be executed. Otherwise, the
program will ignore the statement or the block of statements.
Note: Never place a semicolon after the expression in an If statement.
Example 1. Write a program that will output Congratulations you PASSED! if the
students grade is greater than or equal to 60.
#include<stdio.h>
int grade;
main( )
{

Output

Enter student grade: 95

Congratulations you PASSED!

printf(Enter student grade:);

scanf(%d, &grade);
if (grade >= 60)
printf(Congratulations you PASSED!);
getch( );
}

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Conditional Statements | Page 3

Example 2.

Write a program that will ask for a price. If the price is greater than 1000,
compute a 10% discount from the original price. Display the computed
discount.

#include<stdio.h>
Output
float price, discount;
main( )
Enter value for price:
{
Discount is 200.00
printf(Enter value for price:);
scanf(%f, &price);
if(price > 1000)
{
discount = price * 0.10;
printf(Discount is %.2f, discount);
}
getch( );
}

2000

The IF-ELSE statement

The general form of the if-else statement is:
if (expression)
statement_1;
else
statement_2;
where:
if and else are reserve words in C
expression is relational or boolean expression that evaluates to a TRUE (1) or FALSE (0)
value
statement_1 and statement_2 may either be a single C statement or a block of C
statements.
The general form of the if-else statement with block of statements is:
if (expression)
{
statement_sequence;
}
else
{
statement_sequence;
}
In an if-else statement, if the expression is TRUE (1), the statement or block of
statements after the if statement will be executed; otherwise, the statement or block of
statements in the else statement will be executed.
NOTE: Only the code associated with the if or the code that is associated with the else
executes, never both.

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Example 3.

Write a program that will output Congratulations you PASSED! if the

students grade is greater than or equal to 60. Otherwise output, Sorry
you FAILED!

#include<stdio.h>
int grade;
main( )
{
printf(Enter student grade:);
scanf(%d, &grade);
if (grade >= 60)
printf(Congratulations you PASSED!);
else
printf(Sorry you FAILED!);
getch( );
}

Output

Enter student grade: 50

Sorry you FAILED!

The NESTED-IF statement

One of the most confusing aspects of the if statement in any programming language is
nested ifs. A nested if is an if statement that is the object of either an if or else. This is
sometimes referred to as an if within an if.
The reason that nested ifs are so confusing is that it can be difficult to know what else
associates with what if.Fortunately, C provides a very simple rule for resolving this type
of situation. In C, the else is linked to the closest preceding if that does not already have
an else statement associated with it.
Consider the following situations:
Situation 1 The else at number 3 is paired with the if in number 2 since it is the nearest if
statement with the else statement.
1.
if

2.
if

3.
else
Situation 2 The else in number 5 is paired with the if in number 1.
1. if
2. {
3.
if

4. }
5. else
Notice that there is a pair of braces found in number 2 and number 4. The pair of braces
defines the scope of the if statement in number 1 starting from the { in number 2 and ends
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Conditional Statements | Page 5

with } in number 4. Therefore, the else statement in number 5 cannot be paired with the
if statement in number 3 because the else statement is outside the scope of the first if
statement. This makes the if statement in number 1 the nearest if statement to the else
statement in number 5.
Example 4. Write a program that reads in three numbers A, B and C and determine
which is the largest.
#include<stdio.h>
int A, B, C;
main( )
{
printf(Enter three numbers:);
scanf(%d%d%d, &A, &B, &C);
if (A > B)
if (A > C)
printf(A is the largest.\n);
else
printf(C is the largest.\n);
else
if (B > C)
printf(B is the largest.\n);
else
printf(C is the largest.\n);
getch( );
}

Output

Enter three numbers: 7 11 5

B is the largest.

The IF-ELSE-IF Ladder

A common programming construct in C is the if-else-if ladder.
The general form of the if-else-if ladder statement is:
if (expression_1)
statement_1;
else if (expression_2)
statement_2;
else if (expression_3)
statement_3;
:
:
else
statement_else;
where:
if and else are reserve words in C
expression_1, expression_2 up to expression_n is relational or boolean expression that
evaluates to a TRUE (1) or FALSE (0) value
statement_1, statement_2 up to statement_else may either be a single C statement or a
block of C statements.
In an if-else-if ladder statement, the expressions are evaluated from the top downward.
As soon as a true condition is found, the statement associated with it is executed, and the

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Conditional Statements | Page 6

rest of the ladder will not be executed. If none of the condition is true, the final else is
executed.
The final else acts as a default condition. If all other conditions are false, the last else
statement is performed. If the final else is not present, then no action takes place.
Note: The final else is optional, you may include this part if needed in the program or you
may not include if not needed.
Example 5.

Write a program that will ask the user to input an integer then output the
equivalent day of the week. 1 is Sunday, 2 is Monday and so on. If the
inputted number is not within 1-7, output Day is not available!

#include<stdio.h>
main( )
{
int day;
printf(Enter an integer:);
scanf(%d, &day);
if (day = = 1)
printf(Sunday);
else if (day = = 2)
printf(Monday);
else if (day = = 3)
printf(Tuesday);
else if (day = = 4)
printf(Wednesday);
else if (day = = 5)
printf(Thursday);
else if (day = = 6)
printf(Friday);
else if (day = = 7)
printf(Saturday);
else
printf(Day is not available!);
getch( );
}

Output

Enter an integer: 4
Wednesday

The ! Operator
! ( y < 10 ) This means not y less than 10.
if ( ! flag ) This is another way of saying if ( flag == 0 )
Hierarchy of Operators Revisited

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A Word of Caution

Common mistake #1
main( ) {
int i ;
printf ( "Enter value of i " ) ;
scanf ( "%d", &i ) ;
if ( i = 5 )
printf ( "You entered 5" ) ;
else
printf ( "You entered something other than 5" ) ;
}

Output of two runs of this program...

Enter value of i 200
You entered 5
Enter value of i 9999
You entered 5
Why?

Common mistake #2
Another common mistake while using the if
statement is to write a semicolon (;) after
the condition, as shown below:
main( ) {
int i ;
printf ( "Enter value of i " ) ;
scanf ( "%d", &i ) ;
if ( i == 5 ) ;
printf ( "You entered 5" ) ;
}

Wat will be printed?

Working of all 3 logical operators :

The Conditional Operators:

The conditional operators ? and : are sometimes called ternary operators since they take
three arguments
Their general form is:
expression 1 ? expression 2 : expression 3
Example 1:
int x, y ;
The equivalent if statement will be:
scanf ( "%d", &x ) ;
if ( x > 5 )
y=(x>5?3:4);
y=3;
This statement will store 3 in y if x is greater
else
than 5, otherwise it will store 4 in y.
y=4;
Example 2:
char a ;
int y ;
scanf ( "%c", &a ) ;
y = ( a >= 65 && a <= 90 ? 1 : 0 ) ; // Here 1 would be assigned to y if a >=65
Conditional Operators guidelines:

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Conditional Statements | Page 8

(a) Its not necessary that the conditional operators should be used only in arithmetic statements.:
Ex.: int i ;
scanf ( "%d", &i ) ;
( i == 1 ? printf ( "Amit" ) : printf ( "All and sundry" ) ) ;
Ex.: char a = 'z' ;
printf ( "%c" , ( a >= 'a' ? a : '!' ) ) ;
(b) The conditional operators can be nested as shown below.
int big, a, b, c ;
big = ( a > b ? ( a > c ? 3: 4 ) : ( b > c ? 6: 8 ) ) ;
(c) Check out the following conditional expression:
a>b?g=a:g=b;
This will give you an error Lvalue Required. The error can be overcome by enclosing the
statement in the : part within a pair of parenthesis. This is shown below:
a>b?g=a:(g=b);
In absence of parentheses the compiler believes that b is being assigned to the result of the
expression to the left of second =. Hence it reports an error.

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Conditional Statements | Page 9

Do It Yourself
1. Write a program that finds the smallest among the five integers inputted by the
user.
2. Write a program that asks the user for the hours worked for the week and the
hourly rate. The basic salary is computed as:
Salary = hours worked * hourly rate
Bonuses are given:
No. of hours > 45
Bonus of 500 pesos
No. of hours > 40 and <=45
Bonus of 250 pesos
No. of hours > 35 and <=40
Bonus of 150 pesos
Display the basic salary, bonus and the total salary (basic salary + bonus) for the
week.
3. Write a program that accepts five numbers from the user and displays the highest
and the lowest number. Assume that there are no duplicate values.

Take Home Task

1. Write a program that will display ITS COLD! if the temperature is less than
20, ITS HOT! if the temperature is greater than 30, COOL CLIMATE!
otherwise.
2. Write the flowchart of the following C program:
#include<stdio.h>
int A, B, C;
main( )
{
printf(Enter three numbers:);
scanf(%d%d%d, &A, &B, &C);
if (A > B)
if (A > C)
printf(A is the largest.\n);
else
printf(C is the largest.\n);
else
if (B > C)
printf(B is the largest.\n);
else
printf(C is the largest.\n);
getch( );
}

EL121 Computer Fundamentals

Output

Enter three numbers: 7 11 5

B is the largest.