Using Decision Making Statements, if and if-else in C program

When you are writing C program, sometimes you need to make certain checks on variables and based on which you need to take some decisions.. this is called as Decision making statements in C programming Language.

In this post, we will show you how you can use simple conditional statements “if” and “if-else” in your C programs

C programming supports following conditional operators

• x == y means “returns true if x is equals to y” otherwise “return false”
• x != y means “returns true if x is not equals to y” otherwise “return false”
• x < y means “returns true if x is less than y” otherwise “return false”
• x > y means “returns true if x is greater than y” otherwise “return false”
• x <= y means “returns true if x is less than or equals to y” otherwise “return false”
• x >= y means “returns true if x is greater than or equals to y” otherwise “return false”

Now, lets use above conditional operators to show how you can use if and if-else to execute different code based on this conditions.

Using IF

$ vim if.c

#include <stdio.h>

int main (int argc, char **argv) {
int x = 10, y = 22 ;

if (x <= y)
    printf ("x is less than or equal to y");

return 0;
}

Notice in above code, how we have written the “if” statement.

• we need to add open and close bracket () in for the condition check
• We can start the next line after “if” at any place

if we execute this C code, now on console.. we can see that it will print the string “x is less than or equal to y” as x is set to 10 and y is set to 22.

$ gcc -o if_bin if.c

$ ./if_bin 
x is less than or equal to y 

Using IF-ELSE

$ vim ifelse.c 

#include <stdio.h>

int main(int argc, char **argv) {
    int x = 10, y = 22 ;

    if (x <= y)
        print ("x is less than or equal to y");
    else 
        print ("x is greater than y");

    return 0;
}

As we have checked in “if’ when x = 10 and y = 22 i.e. 10 < 22, the code’s if statement “x <= y” will become true and “x is less than or equal to y” message will get printed.

Now, lets change values of x = 22 and y = 10 as below,

#include <stdio.h>

int main(int argc, char **argv) {
int x = 22, y = 10 ;

if (x <= y)
    print ("x is less than or equal to y");
else 
    print ("x is greater than y");

return 0;
}

and now if we run this code, since 22 > 10 i.e. x > y , the first “if x <= y” returns false, hence code execution will go to “else”
and if will print “x is greater than y”

$ gcc -o ifelse_bin ifelse.c

$ ./ifelse_bin
x is greater than y