Exploring if statements

As their name suggests, conditional statements are based on the evaluation of a condition. The result of this condition is either true or false – in other words, a boolean. Figure 4.2 introduces the syntax of the overall if statement:

Figure 4.2 – The if statement syntax

The square brackets [] in the preceding figure denote something as optional. For example, both the else if statements and the else statement are optional. The if statement itself is mandatory. The three ellipses, ..., indicate that you can have as many else if statements as you like (or none at all).

Now that we have the overall syntax, let us break it down into smaller pieces.

The if statement itself

As stated earlier, an if statement evaluates a boolean expression. This boolean expression is enclosed in parentheses. Curly braces that delimit a block of code are optional if there is only one statement after the if clause. However, it is considered...