DECISION STRUCTURE

DECISION STRUCTURE

if

IF

Programs require a different type of control structure:
- Sequence structure
- Decision structures or selection structures
- .....
The if statement is used to create a decision structure, which allows a program to have more than one path of execution. The if statement causes one or more statements to execute only when a Boolean expression is true.
For simplicity, we will refer to the first line as the if clause. The if clause begins with the word if, followed by a condition, which is an expression that will be evaluated as either true or false. A colon appears after the condition. Beginning at the next line is a block of statements. A block is simply a set of statements that belong together as a group. Notice in the general format that all of the statements in the block are indented. This indentation is required because the Python interpreter uses it to tell where the block begins and ends.