Programming in C

Lecture 5: Selection Structures

Outline

 Control Structures
 Conditions
 Relational Operators
 Logical Operators
 if statements
 Two-Alternatives
 One-Alternative
 Nested If Statements
 switch Statement

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2
Control Structures
 Control structures –control the flow
of execution in a program or
function.
 Three basic control structures:
 Sequential Flow - this is written as a
group of statements bracketed by { and
}where one statement follows another. C
Y N
 Selection control structure - this
chooses between multiple statements to
execute based on some condition.
 Repetition – this structure executes a Y
C
block of code multiple times. N

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Compound Statements
 A Compound statement or a Code Block is
written as a group of statements bracketed by {
and } and is used to specify sequential flow.
{
Statement_1;
Statement_2;
Statement_3;
}
 Example: the main function is surrounded by {}, and
its statements are executed sequentially.
 Function body also uses compound statement.
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Conditions
 A program chooses among alternative statements by testing
the values of variables.
 0 means false
 Any non-zero integer means true, Usually, we’ll use 1 as
true.

if (a > b)
printf(“a is larger”);
else
printf(“b is larger”);

 Condition - an expression that establishes a criterion for

either executing or skipping a group of statements
 a > b is a condition that determines which printf
statement we execute.

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Relational and Equality Operators

 Most conditions that we use to perform comparisons

will have one of these forms:
 variable relational-operator variable e.g. a < b
 variable relational-operator constant e.g. a > 3
 variable equality-operator variable e.g. a == b
 variable equality-operator constant e.g. a != 10

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Relational and Equality Operators

Operator Meaning Type

< less than relational
> greater than relational
<= less than or equal to relational
>= greater than or equal to relational
== equal to equality
!= not equal to equality
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Logical Operators
 logical expressions - expressions that use conditional
statements and logical operators.
 && (and)
 A && B is true if and only if both A and B are true
 || (or)
 A || B is true if either A or B are true
 ! (not)
 !(condition) is true if condition is false, and false if
condition is true
 This is called the logical complement or negation
 Example
 (salary < 10000) || (dependents > 5)
 (temperature > 90.0) && (humidity > 90)
 !(temperature > 90.0)

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Truth Table && Operator

A B A && B

False (zero) False (zero) False (zero)

False (zero) True (non-zero) False (zero)

True (non-zero) False (zero) False (zero)

True (non-zero) True (non-zero) True (non-zero)

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Truth Table || Operator

A B A || B

False (zero) False (zero) False (zero)

False (zero) True (non-zero) True (non-zero)

True (non-zero) False (zero) True (non-zero)

True (non-zero) True (non-zero) True (non-zero)

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Operator Table ! Operator

A !A

False (zero) True (non-zero)

True (non-zero) False (zero)

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Remember!

 && operator yields a true result only when both its

operands are true.
 || operator yields a false result only when both its
operands are false.

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 Operator Precedence
 Operator’s precedence function calls
determine the order of ! + - & (unary operations)
execution. Use parenthesis
to clarify the meaning of *, /, %
expression. +, -
 Relational operator has <, >, <=, >=
higher precedence than the
logical operators. ==, !=
 Ex: followings are &&
different. ||
(x<y || x<z) && (x>0.0) =
x<y || x<z && x>0.0

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Writing English Conditions in C

 Make sure your C condition is logically equivalent

to the English statement.
 “x and y are greater than z”
(x > z) && (y > z) (valid)
x && y > z (invalid)

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Character Comparison

 C allows character comparison using

relational and equality operators.
 During comparison Lexicographic
(alphabetical) order is followed. (See
Appendix A for a complete list of ASCII
values).
‘9’ >= ‘0’ // True
‘a’ < ‘e’ // True
‘a’ <= ch && ch <= ‘z’ /* True if ch is a
char type variable that
contains a lower case
letter.*/

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Logical Assignment
 You can assign an int type variable a non zero
value for true or zero for false.
Ex: even = (n%2 == 0)
if (even) { do something }
 Some people prefer following for better
readability.
#define FALSE 0
#define TRUE !FALSE
even = (n%2 == 0)
if (even == TRUE) { do something }
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 if statement : Two alternatives
if (condition)
{compound_statement_1 } // if condition is true
else
{ compound_statement_2 } // if condition is false

Example:

if (crash_test_rating_index <= MAX_SAFE_CTRI) {

printf("Car #%d: safe\n", auto_id);
safe = safe + 1;
}
else {
printf("Car #%d: unsafe\n", auto_id);
unsafe = unsafe + 1;
}

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 Nested if Statements
 So far we have used if statements to code decisions with one
or two alternatives.
 A compound statement may contain more if statements.
 In this section we use nested if statements (one if statement
inside another) to code decisions with multiple alternatives.

if (x > 0)
num_pos = num_pos + 1;
else
if (x < 0)
num_neg = num_neg + 1;
else
num_zero = num_zero + 1;

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Comparison of Nested if and Sequences of ifs

 Beginning programmers sometime prefer to use a sequence of

if statements rather than a single nested if statement

if (x > 0)
num_pos = num_pos + 1;
if (x < 0)
num_neg = num_neg + 1;
if (x == 0)
num_zero = num_zero +1;

 This is less efficient because all three of the conditions are

always tested.
 In the nested if statement, only the first condition is tested
when x is positive.
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Multiple-Alternative Decision Form of
Nested if
 Nested if statements can become quite complex. If there are more
than three alternatives and indentation is not consistent, it may be
difficult for you to determine the logical structure of the if
statement.
 You can code the nested if as the multiple-alternative decision
described below:

if ( condition_1 )
statement_1
else if ( condition_2 )
statement_2
.
.
.
else if ( condition_n )
statement_n
else
statement_e

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Common if statement errors

if crsr_or_frgt == ’C’
printf("Cruiser\n");

 This error is that there are no ( ) around the

condition, and this is a syntax error.

if (crsr_or_frgt == ’C’);
printf("Cruiser\n");

 This error is that there is a semicolon after

the condition. C will interpret this as there is
nothing to do if the condition is true.

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Switch statements

 The switch statement is a better way of

writing a program when a series of if-else if
occurs.
 The switch statement selects one of several
alternatives.
 The switch statement is especially useful
when the selection is based on the value of a
single variable or of a simple expression
 This is called the controlling expression
 In C, the value of this expression may be of
type int or char, but not of type double.

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Example of a switch Statement with Type char Case Labels
/* Determines the class of Ship given its class ID */
#include <stdio.h>
int main(void) {
char classID;
printf("Enter class id [a, b, c or d]: ");
scanf("%c", &classID);

switch (classID) {
case 'B':
case 'b':
printf("Battleship\n");
break;
case 'C':
case 'c':
printf("Cruiser\n");
break;
case 'D':
case 'd':
printf("Destroyer\n");
break;
case 'F':
case 'f':
printf("Frigate\n");
break;
default:
printf("Unknown ship class %c\n", classID);
}
return 0; 23
}
Explanation of Example
 This takes the value of the variable class and
compares it to each of the cases in a top down
approach.
 It stops after it finds the first case that is equal to the
value of the variable class.
 It then starts to execute each line of the code following
the matching case till it finds a break statement or the
end of the switch statement.
 If no case is equal to the value of class, then the
default case is executed.
 default case is optional. So if no other case is equal to the
value of the controlling expression and there is a default case,
then default case is executed. If there is no default case, then
the entire switch body is skipped.

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Remember !!!
 The statements following a case label may be one or more C
statements, so you do not need to make multiple statements
into a single compound statement using braces.
 You cannot use a string such as ”Cruiser” or ”Frigate” as a
case label.
 It is important to remember that type int and char values may
be used as case labels, type double values cannot be used.
 Another very common error is the omission of the break
statement at the end of one alternative.
 In such a situation, execution ”falls through” into the next
alternative.
 Forgetting the closing brace of the switch statement body is
also easy to do.
 In the book it says that forgetting the last closing brace will
make all following statements occur in the default case, but
actually the code will not compile on most compilers.
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Nested if versus switch

 Advantages of if:
 It is more general than a switch
 It can be a range of values such as x < 100
 A switch can not compare doubles

 Advantages of switch:
 A switch is more readable

 Use the switch whenever there are ten

or fewer case labels

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Common Programming Errors
 Consider the statement:
if (0 <= x <= 4)
 This is always true!
 First it does 0 <= x, which is true or false so it evaluates to 1 for true and 0
for false
 Then it takes that value, 0 or 1, and does 1 <= 4 or 0 <= 4
 Both are always true
 In order to check a range use (0 <= x && x <= 4).

 Consider the statement:

if (x = 10)
 This is always true!
 The = symbol assigns x the value of 10, so the conditional statement
evaluates to 10
 Since 10 is nonzero this is true.
 You must use == for comparison

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More Common Errors

 Don’t forget to parenthesize the condition.

 Don’t forget the { and } if they are needed
 C matches each else with the closest unmatched
if, so be careful so that you get the correct
pairings of if and else statements.
 In switch statements, make sure the controlling
expression and case labels are of the same
permitted type.
 Remember to include the default case for switch
statements.
 Don’t forget your { and } for the switch statement.
 Don’t forget your break statements!!!

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