Decision Control Structure
Dr.Rab Nawaz Jadoon
Department of Computer Science Assistant Professor
COMSATS University, Abbottabad
DCS Pakistan
COMSATS Univeresity, Islamabad
(Abbottabad Campus)
Programming Fundamental
Decision control structure
Before this we have used sequence control
structure in which,
Various steps are executed sequentially, i.e. in the
same order in which they appear in the program.
By default the instructions in a program are executed
sequentially.
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Decision control structure
Many a times, we want a set of instructions to
be executed in one situation, and an entirely
different set of instructions to be executed in
another situation.
This kind of situation is dealt in C programs using a
decision control instruction.
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Decision control structure
Decision control instruction can be implemented
in C using:
The if statement
The if-else statement
The conditional operators
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The If Statement
Like most languages, C uses the keyword if to
implement the decision control instruction.
The general form of if statement looks like this:
if ( this condition is true )
execute this statement ;
The condition following the keyword if is always enclosed
within a pair of parentheses.
If the condition, whatever it is, is true, then the statement is
executed.
If the condition is not true then the statement is not
executed; instead the program skips past it.
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Single and double control structure
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The If Statement
We express a condition using C’s ‘relational’
operators.
The relational operators allow us to compare two
values to see whether they are equal to each other,
unequal, or whether one is greater than the other.
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Simple Program using If statement
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If Control Structure
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Problem
While purchasing certain items, a discount of 10% is offered if the
quantity purchased is more than 1000. If quantity and price per item are
input through the keyboard, write a program to calculate the total
expenses???
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Solution (Flow Chart & Program)
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Multiple statements within If
More than one statement to be executed if the
expression following if is satisfied.
If such multiple statements are to be executed then
they must be placed within a pair of braces.
For example,
If(condition)
{
---------
---------
}
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Program
Flow chart Program
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Quiz
#include<stdio.h>
#include<conio.h> What would be the output???
main( )
{ Nothing
int a = 300, b, c ;
if ( a >= 400 ) What would be the output, if a=500???
{
b = 300 ; 300 200
c = 200 ;
printf ( "\n %d %d", b, c ) ;
}
getche ();
}
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The if-else Structure
Execute one group of statements if the
expression evaluates to true and another group
of statements if the expression evaluates to
false.
This is done using the if-else control structure.
For example,
If student’s grade is greater than or equal to 60
Print “Passed”
else
Print “Failed”
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If-else Example
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Program illustrating if-else
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Quiz ???
What would be the output of the following
program???
x and y are equal
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Quiz ???
What would be the output of the following
program???
C is WOW
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Quiz ???
Identify the error from the following
}
No Error, a and b are equal
No Error
No Error
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Identify the errors
No Error
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Forms of if
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Use of logical operators
C allows usage of three logical operators,
namely, &&, || and !.
These are to be read as ‘AND’, ‘OR’ and ‘NOT’
respectively.
Two of them are composed of double symbols:
|| and &&.
Don’t use the single symbol | and &. These single symbols
also have a meaning. They are bitwise operators.
The first two operators, && and ||, allow two or more
conditions to be combined in an if statement.
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Working of three logical operators
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Example
The marks obtained by a student in 5 different
subjects are input through the keyboard.
The student gets a division as per the following
rules:
Percentage above or equal to 60 - First division
Percentage between 50 and 59 - Second division
Percentage between 40 and 49 - Third division
Percentage less than 40 - Fail
Write a program to calculate the division obtained by
the student.
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Solution (Method-1)
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Problems faced in the program
This is a straight forward program. Observe that
the program uses nested if-elses.
This leads to three disadvantages:
As the number of conditions go on increasing the level of
indentation also goes on increasing. As a result the whole
program creeps to the right.
Care needs to be exercised to match the corresponding if’s
and elses.
Care needs to be exercised to match the corresponding pair
of braces.
Note: All these three problems can be eliminated by usage of ‘Logical
operators’. (Method 2)
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Solution (Method-2)
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The Else if Clause (Method -3)
There is one more way in which we can write
the previous program,
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The Else if Clause (Method -3)
Note that the else if clause is nothing different.
It is just a way of rearranging the else with the if that
follows it.
This would be evident if you look at the following
code:
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The Else if Clause
Problem
A company insures its drivers in the following cases:
If the driver is married.
If the driver is unmarried, male & above 30 years of age.
If the driver is unmarried, female & above 25 years of age.
In all other cases the driver is not insured. If the
marital status, sex and age of the driver are the
inputs.
Write a program to determine whether the driver is
to be insured or not?
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Solution-1
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Solution-2
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Problem…
Write a program to calculate the salary as per
the following table:
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Solution
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Cont…
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The ! Operator
This operator reverses the result of the
expression it operates on.
For example, if the expression evaluates to a non-
zero value, then applying ! operator to it results into
a 0 and vice versa.
If the expression evaluates to zero then on applying !
operator to it makes it 1, a non-zero value. The final
result (after applying !) 0 or 1 is considered to be
false or true respectively.
For Example ! ( y < 10 ), y is less than 10, the ! Operator
returns false.
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The ! Operator
The NOT operator is often used to reverse the
logical value of a single variable, as in the
expression
if ( ! flag )
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Identify the error from the
following???
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Conditional Operator
The conditional operators ? and : are sometimes
called ternary operators since they take three
arguments.
They form a kind of foreshortened if-then-else.
Their general form is,
expression 1 ? expression 2 : expression 3
What this expression says is:
“If expression 1 is true (that is, if its value is non-zero), then
the value returned will be expression 2, otherwise the value
returned will be expression 3”.
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Examples
The following program store 3 in y, if x is
greater than 5, otherwise it will store 4 in y.
The comparison with if else is as under,
Equivalent to
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Example
1 would be assigned to y if a >=65 && a <=90
evaluates to true, otherwise 0 would be assigned
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Important point
It’s not necessary that the conditional operators
should be used only in arithmetic statements. This is
illustrated in the following examples:
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Cont…
The conditional operators can be nested as
shown below.
Check out the following conditional expression:
a>b?g=a:g=b;
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Limitation
The limitation of the conditional operators is
that after the ? Or after the : only one C
statement can occur.
In practice rarely is this the requirement.
Therefore, in serious C programming conditional
operators aren’t as frequently used as the if-else.
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Limitations
The limitation of the conditional operators is
that after the ? or after the : only one C
statement can occur.
Therefore, in serious C programming conditional
operators aren’t as frequently used as the if-
else.
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