Ch 6 · Conditional Statements · Python
Topic 6 of 13 in Python — Complete Tutorial (Beginner) — 3 lessons.
Making Decisions with if / elif / else
A conditional statement lets your program take different actions depending on whether a condition is true or false. This is how programs become intelligent — instead of always doing the same steps, they examine their data and respond differently. Think of a traffic light: if red, stop; if green, go; if amber, slow down. The program checks a condition and branches. We call this control flow.
The match Statement
When you want to compare one value against many specific options, Python's match statement (added in Python 3.10) is cleaner than a long chain of elifs. It evaluates a value once and jumps to the matching case. Each case lists a value to compare against, and the underscore _ acts as the catch-all "default," like else. Unlike some languages, Python does not need a break — only the matching case runs.
Conditional Expressions (the "ternary")
Sometimes you just want to choose between two values on a single line. Python's conditional expression does exactly that, and it reads almost like a sentence: value_if_true if condition else value_if_false. So "Adult" if age >= 18 else "Minor" reads as "use Adult if age is 18 or more, otherwise use Minor." Use it when the choice is simple and produces a single value; for anything complex, a normal if/else is clearer.
All topics in Python Beginner
- Introduction to Programming & Python
- Your First Python Program
- Variables — Your Data Containers
- Data Types — Kinds of Values
- Operators & Expressions
- Conditional Statements
- Loops & Iterations
- Functions
- Lists — Collections of Data
- Dictionaries & Classes
- Strings — Working with Text
- Error Handling
- Mini-Projects & Practice