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# 7.1: The If Statement

Created by: CK-12

The if statement is one way to make the sequence of computations executed by in an m-file script depend on variable values. The if statement has several different forms. The simplest form is

if expression

% Commands to execute if expression is true

end


where

expression


is a logical expression that is either true or false. (Information about logical expressions is available in the Logical Expressions section of this chapter.) For example, the following if statement will print "$v$ is negative" if the variable

v


is in fact negative:

if v < 0

disp('v is negative')

end


A more complicated form of the if statement is

if expression

% Commands to execute if expression is true

else

% Commands to execute if expression is false

end


For example, the following if statement will print "$v$ is negative" if the variable

v


is negative and "$v$ is not negative" if

v


is not negative:

if v < 0

disp('v is negative')

else

disp('v is not negative')

end


The most general form of the if statement is

if expression1

% Commands to execute if expression1 is true

elseif expression2

% Commands to execute if expression2 is true

elseif expression3

% Commands to execute if expression3 is true

...

else

% Commands to execute if all expressions are false

end


The following if statement is an example of this most general statement:

if v < 0

disp('v is negative')

elseif v > 0

disp('v is positive')

else

disp('v is zero')

end


Note that in all of the examples in this section, the commands inside the if statement are indented relative to the

if


,

else


,

elseif


,

and

end


statements. This is not required, but is common practice and makes the code much more readable.

## Logical Expressions

Logical expressions are used in if statements, switch-case statements, and while loops to change the sequence of execution of commands in response to variable values. A logical expression is one that evaluates to either true or false. For example,

v > 0


is a logical expression that will be true if the variable

v


is greater than zero and false otherwise. (In m-file scripts, logical values (true and false) are actually represented by numerical values. The numerical value of zero represents false, and any nonzero numerical value represents true.)

Logical expressions are typically formed using the relational operators in Table 1.

Relational Operators
Symbol Relation
<

Less than
<=

Less than or equal to
>

Greater than
>=

Greater than or equal to
==

Equal to
~=

Not equal to

Note that

==


is not the same as

=


; they are treated very differently in m-file scripting environments.

==


compares two values, while

=


assigns a value to a variable.

Complex logical expressions can be created by combining simpler logical expressions using the logical operators in Table 2.

Logical Operators
Symbol Relation
~

Not
&&

And
||

Or

## If-Statement Drill Exercises

Exercise 1

What will the following code print?

a = 10;

if a ~= 0

disp('a is not equal to 0')

end


Exercise 2

What will the following code print?

a = 10;

if a > 0

disp('a is positive')

else

disp('a is not positive')

end


Exercise 3

What will the following code print?

a = 5;

b = 3;

c = 2;

if a < b * c

disp('Hello world')

else

disp('Goodbye world')

end


Exercise 4

Suppose the code in Exercise 2 is modified by adding parentheses around

a > 0


to produce the following. What will it print?

a = 10;

if (a > 0)

disp('a is positive')

else

disp('a is not positive')

end


Exercise 5

Suppose the code in Exercise 3 is modfied by adding the parentheses shown below. What will it print?

a = 5;

b = 3;

c = 2;

if (a < b) * c

disp('Hello world')

else

disp('Goodbye world')

end


Exercise 6

What will the following code print?
p1 = 3.14;

p2 = 3.14159;

if p1 == p2

disp('p1 and p2 are equal')

else

disp('p1 and p2 are not equal')

end


Exercise 7

What will the following code print?

a = 5;

b = 10;

if a = b

disp('a and b are equal')

else

disp('a and b are not equal')

end


Exercise 8

For what values of the variable

a


will the following code print 'Hello world'?

if ~ a == 0

disp('Hello world')

else

disp('Goodbye world')

end


Exercise 9

For what values of the variable

a


will the following code print 'Hello world'?

if a >= 0 && a < 7

disp('Hello world')

else

disp('Goodbye world')

end


Exercise 10

For what values of the variable

a


will the following code print 'Hello world'?

if a < 3 || a > 10

disp('Hello world')

else

disp('Goodbye world')

end


Exercise 11

For what values of the variable

a


will the following code print 'Hello world'?

if a < 7 || a >= 3

disp('Hello world')

else

disp('Goodbye world')

end


Exercise 12

Write an if statement that will print 'a is very close to zero' if the value of the variable

a


is between $-0.01$ and $0.01$.

Feb 23, 2012

Sep 15, 2014