Lab Session 03

Control Structures, Decision Making using simple If, If-Else statement.

Objectives:
1. To understand Control Structures,

2. Demonstration of decision Making using simple If, If-Else statement.

Algorithms
Any solvable computing problem can be solved by executing of a series of actions in a specific
order. A procedure for solving a problem in terms of 1. the actions to execute and 2. the order in
which the actions execute is called an algorithm. The following example demonstrates that
correctly specifying the order in which the actions execute is important. Consider the “rise-and-
shine algorithm” followed by one junior executive for getting out of bed and going to work:

Control Structures.
A program is usually not limited to a linear sequence of instructions. During its process it may
bifurcate, repeat code or take decisions. For that purpose, C++ provides control structures that
serve to specify what has to be done to perform our program.
With the introduction of control sequences we are going to have to introduce a new concept:
the block of instructions. A block of instructions is a group of instructions separated by semicolons
(;) butgrouped in a block delimited by curly bracket signs: { and }.

Most of the control structures that we will see in this section allow a generic statement as a
parameter, this refers to either a single instruction or a block of instructions, as we want. If we
want the statement to be a single instruction we do not need to enclose it between curly-brackets
({}). If we want the statement to be more than a single instruction we must enclose them between
curly brackets ({}) forming a block of instructions.

Conditional structure: if and else

if (condition) statement

where condition is the expression that is being evaluated. If this condition is true, statement is
executed. If it is false, statement is ignored (not executed) and the program continues on the next
instruction after the conditional structure.

For example, the following code fragment prints out x is 100 only if the value stored in variable x is
indeed 100:

if (x == 100)
cout << "x is 100";

If we want more than a single instruction to be executed in case that condition is true we can
specify a block of instructions using curly brackets { }:
if (x == 100)
{
cout << "x is ";
cout << x;
}

We can additionally specify what we want that happens if the condition is not fulfilled by using
the keyword else. Its form used in conjunction with if is:

if (condition) statement1 else statement2

For example:

if (x == 100)
cout << "x is 100";
else
cout << "x is not 100";

prints out on the screen x is 100 if indeed x is worth 100, but if it is not -and only if not- it prints
out x is not 100.

The if + else structures can be concatenated with the intention of verifying a range of values.
The following example shows its use telling if the present value stored in x is positive, negative
or none of the previous, that is to say, equal to zero.

if (x > 0)
cout << "x is positive";
else if (x < 0)
cout << "x is negative";
 else
cout << "x is 0";

Remember that in case we want more than a single instruction to be executed, we must group
them in a block of instructions by using curly brackets { }.

Decisions
The decisions in a loop always relate to the same question: Should we do this (the loop body)
again?
Programs also need to make these one-time decisions. In a program a decision causes a onetime
jump to a different part of the program, depending on the value of an expression.
Decisions can be made in C++ in several ways. The most important is with the if...else statement,
which chooses between two alternatives. This statement can be used without the else, as a simple
if statement. Another decision statement, switch, creates branches for multiple alternative sections
of code, depending on the value of a single variable. Finally, the conditional operator is used in
specialized situations. We’ll examine each of these constructions.

The if Statement

The if statement is the simplest of the decision statements. Our next program, IFDEMO,
provides
an example.

// ifdemo.cpp
// demonstrates IF statement
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
int main()
{
int x;
cout << “Enter a number: “;
cin >> x;
if( x > 100 )
cout << “That number is greater than 100\n”;
return 0;
}
The if keyword is followed by a test expression in parentheses. The syntax of the if statement is
shown in Figure 3.7. As you can see, the syntax of if is very much like that of while. The
difference is that the statements following the if are executed only once if the test expression is
true; the statements following while are executed repeatedly until the test expression becomes
false. Figure 3.8 shows the operation of the if statement.

Here’s an example of the IFDEMO program’s output when the number entered by the user is
greater than 100:
Enter a number: 2000
That number is greater than 100
If the number entered is not greater than 100, the program will terminate without printing the
second line.

Syntax of if-statement:

Operation of if-statement:
Multiple Statements in the if Body

As in loops, the code in an if body can consist of a single statement—as shown in the IFDEMO
example—or a block of statements delimited by braces. This variation on IFDEMO, called IF2,
shows how that looks.

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
int main()
{
int x;
cout << “Enter a number: “;
cin >> x;
if( x > 100 )
{
cout << “The number “ << x;
cout << “ is greater than 100\n”;
}
return 0;
}
Here’s some output from IF2:
Enter a number: 12345
The number 12345 is greater than 100
The if...else Statement
The if statement lets you do something if a condition is true. If it isn’t true, nothing happens. But
suppose we want to do one thing if a condition is true, and do something else if it’s false. That’s
where the if...else statement comes in. It consists of an if statement, followed by a statement or
block of statements, followed by the keyword else, followed by another statement or block of
statements. The syntax is shown in Figure.

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

int main()
{
int x;
cout << “\nEnter a number: “;
cin >> x;
if( x > 100 )
cout << “That number is greater than 100\n”;
else
cout << “That number is not greater than 100\n”;
return 0;
}

Syntax of if-Else statement:

Operation of if-Else statement:

1. What is PseudoCode?
2. Write a program whether an interger entered is positive or negative number
entered by the user.
3. Write a program that takes students marks from user, if the obtained marks is less
than 60 prints “Fail” otherwise “Pass”.