Control statements

Control statements are statements which control or change the flow of execution. The following
are the control statements available in Python:

● if statement
● if... else statement
● if... elif..else statement
● while loop
● for loop
● else suite
● break statement
● continue statement
● pass statement.

Please note that the switch statement found in many languages like C and Java is not available
in Python.

The if Statement
This statement is used to execute one or more statements depending on whether a condition is
True or not. The syntax or correct format of if statement is given below:

if condition:
statements

First, the condition is tested. If the condition is True, then the statements given after colon (:) are
executed. We can write one or more statements after colon (:). If the condition is False, then the
statements mentioned after colon are not executed.
Ex:

Output:

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Mob:- +91 779568798, Email:- [email protected]
We can also write a group of statements after colon. The group of statements in Python is called
a suite. While writing a group of statements, we should write them all with proper indentation.
Indentation represents the spaces left before the statements.
Ex:

Output:

Observe that every print() function mentioned after colon is starting after 4 spaces only. When
we write the statements with the same indentation, then those statements are considered as a
suite (or belonging to the same group).

The if... else Statement

The if else statement executes a group of statements when a condition is True; otherwise, it will
execute another group of statements. The syntax of if... else statement is given below:

if condition:
Statements1
Else:
statements2
If the condition is True, then it will execute statements1 and if the condition is False. then it will
execute statements2. It is advised to use 4 spaces as indentation before statements and
statements2. In Program 4, we are trying to display whether a given number is even or odd. The
logic is simple. If the number is divisible by 2, then it is an even number, otherwise, it is an odd
number. To know whether a number is divisible by 2 or not, we can use the modulus operator
(%). This operator gives the remainder of division. If the remainder is 0, then the number is
divisible, otherwise not.
Ex:

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Mob:- +91 779568798, Email:- [email protected]
Output:

The same program can be rewritten to accept input from the keyboard.
Ex:

Output:

The if..elif..else statement:

Sometimes, the programmer has to test multiple conditions and execute statements depending
on those conditions. if... elif. else statement is useful in such situations. Consider the following
syntax of if... elif.. else statement:
if condition1:
Statements1
elif condition2:
Statements2
elif condition3:
statements3
else:
statements4
When condition1 is True, the statements will be executed. If condition1 is False, the condition2
is evaluated. When condition2 is True, the statement 2 will be executed When condition2 is
False, the condition 3 is tested. If condition 3 is True, then statements will be executed. When
condition3 is False, the statements will be executed. It means statements 4 will be executed
only if none of the conditions are True Observe colon (:) after each condition. Ex:

Learnvista Pvt Ltd.

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Mob:- +91 779568798, Email:- [email protected]
Output:

The while loop

A statement is executed only once from top to bottom. For example, if is a statement that is
executed by a Python interpreter only once. But a loop is useful to execute repeatedly. For
example, while and for are loops in Python. They are useful to execute a group of statements
repeatedly several times.

The while loop is useful to execute a group of statements several times repeatedly depending
on whether a condition is True or False. The syntax or format of while loop is:

while condition:
statements

Here, statements represent one statement or a suite of statements. Python interpreter first
checks the condition. If the condition is True, then it will execute the statements written after
colon (:) After executing the statements, it will go back and check the condition again. If the
condition is again found to be True, then it will again execute the statements. Then it will go
back to check the condition once again. In this way, as long as the condition is True, the Python
interpreter executes the statements again and again. Once the condition is found to be False,
then it will come out of the while loop.

In the following program, we are using a while loop to display numbers from 1 to 10. Since, we
should start from 1, we will store '1' into a variable x. Then we will write a while loop as: while
x<=10:

Observe the condition. It means, as long as x value is less than or equal to 10, continue the
while loop. Since we want to display 1,2,3,... up to 10, we need this condition. To display x
value, we can use:
print(x)

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Once this is done, we have to increment x value by 1, by writing x+1 or x = x+1.
Ex:

Output:

Ex:

Output:

The for Loop

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The for loop is useful to iterate over the elements of a sequence. It means, the for can be used
to execute a group of statements repeatedly depending upon the numb elements in the
sequence. The for loop can work with sequences like string, list,tuple,range etc. The syntax of
the for loop is given below:
for var in sequence:
statements
The first element of the sequence is assigned to the variable written after for and then the
statements are executed. Next, the second element of the sequence is assigned to the variable
and then the statements are executed a second time. In this way, for each element of the
sequence, the statements are executed once. So, the for loop is executed as many times as
there are a number of elements in the sequence.
Ex:

Output:

In the above program, the string 'str' contains Hello'. There are 6 characters in the string. The for
loop has a variable 'ch'. First of all, the first character of the string, i.e. H' is stored into ch and
the statement, i.e. print(ch) is executed. As a result, it will display H'. Next, the second character
of the string, i.e. 'e' is stored into ch. Then print(ch) is once again executed and 'e' will be
displayed. In the third iteration, the third character 1 will be displayed. In this way the for loop is
executed for 6 times and all the 6 characters are displayed in the output.

In the program below,we are using the for loop to display the elements of the string using index'.
An index represents the position number of elements in the string or sequence. For example,
str[0] represents the 0th character, i.e. 'H' and str[1] represents the first character, i.e. 'e', and so
on. Hence we can take an index 1' that may change from 0 to n 1 where 'n' represents the total
number of elements. We can use a range(n) object that generates numbers from 0 to n-1. Ex:

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Output:

Here, 'n' value will be 6 as the length of the string is 6. We used rangeln) that gives the numbers
from 0 to n-1. Hence for loop repeats from 0 to 5 and print() function displays str[0], stri, str[5] It
means H.e.l.l.o will be displayed. Please note that the len() function gives the total number of
elements in a sequence like string, list or tuple.

The range object, also known as range() function in Python, is useful to provide a sequence of
numbers. range(n) gives numbers from 0 to n-1. For example, if we write range(10), it will return
numbers from 0 to 9. We can also mention the starting number, ending number, as range(5, 10).
In this case, it will give numbers from 5 to 9. We can also specify the step size. The step size
represents the increment in the value of the variable at each step. For example, range(1, 10, 2)
will give numbers from 1 to 9 in steps of 2. That means, we should add 2 to each number to get
the next number. Thus, it will give the numbers: 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9.

Let's write a program to display numbers from 10 to 1 in descending order using the range)
object. In this case, we use range(10, 0, -1). Here, the starting number is 10 and the ending
number is one before 0. The step size is -1. It means we should decrement 1 every time. Thus
we will get 10, 9, 8, up to 1. Observe that it will not return 0 as the last number. It will stop at 1
that is one number before 0.
Ex:

Output:

We will use a for loop to access the elements of a list. As we know, a list is a sequence that
contains a group of elements. It is like an array. But the difference is that an array stores only
one type of element; whereas, a list can store different types of elements. Let's write a program
to create a list and retrieve elements from the list using a for loop.

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Output:

In the above program, each element of the list is stored into the variable 'element. It means, in
the first iteration, element stores 10. In the second iteration, it stores 20.5. In the third iteration, it
stores 'A' In the fourth iteration, it stores 'America'. Hence, print(element) displays all the
elements of the list.

Output:

Observe that there are only two statements in the for loop. They are:
print(i)
sum+=i

If we want to write the same program using while loop

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Output:

Infinite Loops
Please see the following loop:

Here, ‘i’ value starts at 1. print(i) will display 1. Then the value of ‘i' is incremented by 1 so that it
will become 2. In this way, ‘i' values 1, 2, 3,.... up to 10 are displayed. When the ‘i' value is 11,
the condition, i.e. i<10 becomes 'False' and hence the loop terminates.

In the previous while loop, what happens if we forget to write the last statement, i.e. =1? The
initial ‘i' value 1 is displayed first, but it is never incremented to reach 10. Hence this loop will
always display 1 and it never terminates. Such a loop is called an infinite loop. An infinite loop is
a loop that executes forever. So, the following is an example for an infinite loop:

It will display the value 1 forever. To stop the program, we have to press Control+C at the
system prompt. Another way of creating an infinite loop is to write ‘True' in the condition part of
the while loop so that the Python interpreter thinks that the condition is True always and hence
executes it forever. See the example:
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This loop will always display 'Hi' without stopping since the condition is always read as 'True'
always. Infinite loops are drawbacks in a program because when the user is caught in an infinite
loop, he cannot understand how to come out of the loop. So, it is always recommended to avoid
infinite loops in any program.
Nested Loops
It is possible to write one loop inside another loop. For example, we can write a for loop inside a
while loop or a for loop inside another for loop. Such loops are called 'nested loops'. Take the
following for loops:

Output:

The outer for loop repeats for 3 times by changing i values from 0 to 2. The inner for loop
repeats for 4 times by changing j values from 0 to 3. Observe the indentation (4 spaces) before
the inner for loop. The indentation represents that the inner for loop is inside the outer for loop.
Similarly, print() function is inside the inner for loop. When the outer for loop is executed once,
the inner for loop is executed for 4 times. It means, when i value is 0, j values will change from 0
to 3. So, print() function will display the following output:

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Once the inner for loop execution is completed (j reached 3), then the Python interpreter will go
back to the outer for loop to repeat the execution for a second time. This time, ‘i’ value will be 1.
Again, the inner for loop is executed for 4 times. Hence the print function will display the
following output:

Since the inner for loop execution is completed, again the interpreter will go back to outer for
loop. This time i value will be 2 and the output will be:

In this way, the print() function in the inner for loop is executed for 12 times. If we observe the
output given above, we can understand that the outer for loop is executed 3 times and the inner
for loop is executed 4 times. Therefore the print function in the inner for loop is executed for
3x4=12 times.

We will write a Python program to display stars (s) in a right angled triangular form The
expected output in our program is given below:

In the first row, there is only one star. In the second row, there are two stars. In the
third row, there are three stars. It means,
Row number = Row number number of stars in that row.
Since there are 10 rows, we can write an outer for loop that repeats for 10 times from 1 to 10 as:

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for i in range(1, 11): # to display 10 rows
To represent the columns (or stars) in each row, we can write an inner for loop. This for loop
should repeat as many times as the row number indicated by the outer for loop. Suppose the
row number is ‘i' then the inner for loop should repeat for 1 to i times. Hence the inner for loop
can be written as:
for j in range(1, i+1): #repeat for 1 to i times.
Ex:

Output:

In the above program, observe the following print() statement:

This will display the star symbol. The end=” ” represents that it should not throw the cursor to
the next line after displaying each star. So, all the stars are displayed in the same line. But we
need to throw the cursor into the next line when there is a new row starting, i.e. when the ‘i’
value changes. This can be achieved by another print statement in the outer for loop that does
not display anything but simply throws the cursor into the next line.

We can do the same thing using a single loop.

Output:

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This is a simple and elegant style of writing a program in python.
The else Suite
In Python, it is possible to use else statement along with for loop or while loop

for(var in sequence): while(condition):

statements statements

else: else:

statements statements

The statements written after 'else' are called suites. The else suite will be always executed
irrespective of whether the statements in the loop are executed or not.
For example,

Output:

It means, the for loop statement is executed and also the else suite is executed. Suppose we
write:

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Output:

Here, the statement in the for loop is not even executed once, but the else suite is executed as
usual. So, the point is that the else suite is always executed. But then where is this else useful?

Sometimes, we write programs where searching for an element is done in the sequence.When
the element is not found, we can indicate that in the else suite easily. In this case, else with for
loop or while loop is very convenient. Let's now write a program where we take a list of elements
and use a for loop to search for a particular element in the list. If the element is found in the list,
we will display that it is found in the group, else we will display a message that the element is not
found in the list. This is displayed using the else suite.
Ex:

Output:

The break Statement

The break statement can be used inside a for loop or while loop to come out of the loop. When
'break' is executed, the Python interpreter jumps out of the loop to process the next statement in
the program.We have already used break inside for loop in previous program. When the
element is found, it would break the for loop and comes out. We can also use break inside a
while loop. Suppose, we want to display numbers from 10 to 1 in descending order using a
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while loop. For this purpose, we can write a simple while loop as:

Ex: Output:

The continue statement

The continue statement is used in a loop to go back to the beginning of the loop.It means, when
continue is executed, the next repetition will start. When continue is executed, the subsequent
statements in the loop are not executed. In the following program, the while loop repeats for 10
times from 0 to 9. Every time. ‘x' value is displayed by the loop. When x value is greater than 5,
continue' is executed that makes the Python interpreter go back to the beginning of the loop.
Thus the next statements in the loop are not executed. As a result, the numbers up to 5 are only
displayed.

Output:

The pass Statement

The pass statement does not do anything. It is used with an if statement or inside a loop to

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represent no operation. We use pass statement when we need a statement syntactically, but we
do not want to do any operation.
The continue statement in the previous program redirected the flow of execution to the
beginning of the loop. If we use ‘pass’ in the place of ‘continue’, the numbers from 1 to 10 are
displayed as if there is no effect of ‘pass’.
Ex:
Output:

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