Conditional Branching

Branching Statements in C
Branching statements in C control the flow of execution based on conditions. They include if,
else, else if, switch, and the goto statement. These allow decision-making and control over
which parts of the code are executed.
Need of Conditional Statements
There come situations in real life when we need to make some decisions and based on these
decisions, we decide what should we do next. Similar situations arise in programming also
where we need to make some decisions and based on these decisions we will execute the
next block of code. For example, in C if x occurs then execute y else execute z. There can
also be multiple conditions like in C if x occurs then execute p, else if condition y occurs
execute q, else execute r. This condition of C else-if is one of the many ways of importing
multiple conditions.

Following are the decision-making statements available in C:

1. if Statement
2. if-else Statement
3. Nested if Statement
4. if-else-if Ladder
5. switch Statement
6. Conditional Operator
7. Jump Statements:
 break
 continue
 goto
 return
1. if in C
The if statement is the most simple decision-making statement. It is used to decide whether
a certain statement or block of statements will be executed or not i.e if a certain condition is
true then a block of statements is executed otherwise not.

Syntax of if Statement
if(condition)
{
// Statements to execute if
// condition is true
}
Flowchart of if Statement

Flow Diagram of if Statement

Example of if in C
#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
int i = 10;

if (i > 15) {
printf("10 is greater than 15");
}
printf("I am Not in if");
}

Output
I am Not in if
As the condition present in the if statement is false. So, the block below the if statement is
not executed.

2. if-else in C
The if statement alone tells us that if a condition is true it will execute a block of statements
and if the condition is false it won’t. But what if we want to do something else when the
condition is false? Here comes the C else statement. We can use the else statement with
the if statement to execute a block of code when the condition is false. The if-else
statement consists of two blocks, one for false expression and one for true expression.

Syntax of if else in C
if (condition)
{
// Executes this block if
// condition is true
}
else
{
// Executes this block if
 // condition is false
}
Flowchart of if-else Statement

Flow Diagram of if else

Example of if-else
#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
int i = 20;
if (i < 15) {
printf("i is smaller than 15");
}
else {

printf("i is greater than 15");

}
return 0;
}
Output
i is greater than 15
The block of code following the else statement is executed as the condition present in
the if statement is false.

3. Nested if-else in C
A nested if in C is an if statement that is the target of another if statement. Nested if
statements mean an if statement inside another if statement. Yes, C allow us to nested if
statements within if statements, i.e, we can place an if statement inside another if statement.

Syntax of Nested if-else

if (condition1)
{
// Executes when condition1 is true
if (condition_2)
{
// statement 1
}
else
{
// Statement 2
}
}
else {
if (condition_3)
{
// statement 3
}
else
{
// Statement 4
}
}
The below flowchart helps in visualize the above syntax.
Flowchart of Nested if-else

Example of Nested if-else

#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
int i = 10;

if (i == 10) {
// First if statement
if (i < 15)
printf("i is smaller than 15\n");

// Nested - if statement
// Will only be executed if statement above
// is true
if (i < 12)
printf("i is smaller than 12 too\n");
else
printf("i is greater than 15");
 }
else {
if (i == 20) {

// Nested - if statement
// Will only be executed if statement above
// is true
if (i < 22)
printf("i is smaller than 22 too\n");
else
printf("i is greater than 25");
}
}

return 0;
}

Output
i is smaller than 15
i is smaller than 12 too

4. if-else-if Ladder in C
The if else if statements are used when the user has to decide among multiple options. The
C if statements are executed from the top down. As soon as one of the conditions
controlling the if is true, the statement associated with that if is executed, and the rest of the
C else-if ladder is bypassed. If none of the conditions is true, then the final else statement
will be executed. if-else-if ladder is similar to the switch statement.

Syntax of if-else-if Ladder

if (condition)
statement;
else if (condition)
statement;
.
.
else
statement;
Flowchart of if-else-if Ladder

Flow Diagram of if-else-if

Example of if-else-if Ladder
#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
int i = 20;

if (i == 10)
printf("i is 10");
else if (i == 15)
printf("i is 15");
else if (i == 20)
printf("i is 20");
else
printf("i is not present");
}

Output
i is 20

5. switch Statement in C
The switch case statement is an alternative to the if else if ladder that can be used to execute
the conditional code based on the value of the variable specified in the switch statement.
The switch block consists of cases to be executed based on the value of the switch variable.
Syntax of switch
switch (expression) {
case value1:
statements;
case value2:
statements;
....
....
....
default:
statements;
}
Note: The switch expression should evaluate to either integer or character. It cannot
evaluate any other data type.
Flowchart of switch

Flowchart of switch in C
Example of switch Statement
#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
// variable to be used in switch statement
int var = 2;

// declaring switch cases

switch (var) {
case 1:
printf("Case 1 is executed");
break;
case 2:
 printf("Case 2 is executed");
break;
default:
printf("Default Case is executed");
break;
}

return 0;
}

Output
Case 2 is executed

6. Conditional Operator in C
The conditional operator is used to add conditional code in our program. It is similar to the
if-else statement. It is also known as the ternary operator as it works on three operands.
Syntax of Conditional Operator
(condition) ? [true_statements] : [false_statements];
Flowchart of Conditional Operator

Flow Diagram of Conditional Operator

Example of Conditional Operator
#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{

int var;
int flag = 0;

// using conditional operator to assign the value to var

// according to the value of flag
var = flag == 0 ? 25 : -25;
printf("Value of var when flag is 0: %d\n", var);

// changing the value of flag

flag = 1;
// again assigning the value to var using same statement
var = flag == 0 ? 25 : -25;
printf("Value of var when flag is NOT 0: %d", var);

return 0;
}

Output
Value of var when flag is 0: 25
Value of var when flag is NOT 0: -25

7. Jump Statements in C
These statements are used in C for the unconditional flow of control throughout the
functions in a program. They support four types of jump statements:
A) break
This loop control statement is used to terminate the loop. As soon as the break statement is
encountered from within a loop, the loop iterations stop there, and control returns from the
loop immediately to the first statement after the loop.
Syntax of break
break;
Basically, break statements are used in situations when we are not sure about the actual
number of iterations for the loop or we want to terminate the loop based on some
condition.

Example of break
#include <stdio.h>
void findElement(int arr[], int size, int key)
{

for (int i = 0; i < size; i++) {

if (arr[i] == key) {
printf("Element found at position: %d",
(i + 1));
break;
}
}
}

int main()
{
int arr[] = { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 };

// no of elements
int n = 6;

// key to be searched
int key = 3;

// Calling function to find the key

findElement(arr, n, key);

return 0;
}

Output
Element found at position: 3
B) continue
This loop control statement is just like the break statement. The continue statement is
opposite to that of the break statement, instead of terminating the loop, it forces to execute
the next iteration of the loop.
As the name suggests the continue statement forces the loop to continue or execute the next
iteration. When the continue statement is executed in the loop, the code inside the loop
following the continue statement will be skipped and the next iteration of the loop will
begin.
Syntax of continue
continue;
Flowchart of Continue

Flow Diagram of C continue Statement

Example of continue
#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{

for (int i = 1; i <= 10; i++) {

if (i == 6)
continue;

else

printf("%d ", i);

}

return 0;
}
Output
1 2 3 4 5 7 8 9 10

C) goto
The goto statement in C also referred to as the unconditional jump statement can be used to
jump from one point to another within a function.
Syntax of goto
Syntax1 | Syntax2
----------------------------
goto label; | label:
. | .
. | .
. | .
label: | goto label;
In the above syntax, the first line tells the compiler to go to or jump to the statement
marked as a label. Here, a label is a user-defined identifier that indicates the target
statement. The statement immediately followed after ‘label:’ is the destination statement.
The ‘label:’ can also appear before the ‘goto label;’ statement in the above syntax.

Flowchart of goto Statement

Examples of goto
#include <stdio.h>

void printNumbers()
{
int n = 1;
label:
printf("%d ", n);
n++;
if (n <= 10)
goto label;
}
// Driver program to test above function
int main()
{
printNumbers();
return 0;
}

Output
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
D) return
The return in C returns the flow of the execution to the function from where it is called.
This statement does not mandatorily need any conditional statements. As soon as the
statement is executed, the flow of the program stops immediately and returns the control
from where it was called. The return statement may or may not return anything for a void
function, but for a non-void function, a return value must be returned.
Flowchart of return

Flow Diagram of return

Syntax of return
return [expression];