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If-then-else flow diagram A nested if–then–else flow diagram. In computer science, conditionals (that is, conditional statements, conditional expressions and conditional constructs) are programming language constructs that perform different computations or actions or return different values depending on the value of a Boolean expression, called a condition.
Some alternatives to switch statements can be: A series of if-else conditionals that examine the target one value at a time. Fallthrough behavior can be achieved with a sequence of if conditionals each without the else clause. A lookup table, which contains, as keys, the case values and, as values, the part under the case statement.
In such case it is always possible to use a function call, but this can be cumbersome and inelegant. For example, to pass conditionally different values as an argument for a constructor of a field or a base class, it is impossible to use a plain if-else statement; in this case we can use a conditional assignment expression, or a function call ...
Switch statements (or case statements, or multiway branches) compare a given value with specified constants and take action according to the first constant to match. There is usually a provision for a default action ("else", "otherwise") to be taken if no match succeeds. Switch statements can allow compiler optimizations, such as lookup tables.
The dangling else is a problem in programming of parser generators in which an optional else clause in an if–then(–else) statement can make nested conditional statements ambiguous.
The sun being above the horizon is a necessary condition for direct sunlight; but it is not a sufficient condition, as something else may be casting a shadow, e.g., the moon in the case of an eclipse. The assertion that Q is necessary for P is colloquially equivalent to "P cannot be true unless Q is true" or "if Q is false, then P is false".
If no matching case is found, then the default value is used. This is usually specified last with no associated "case" value, as seen in the syntax summary above, but it can also be specified at any point after the test string if the construct | #default = value is used (see the second example below). If no default is specified in either way ...
In most logical systems, one proves a statement of the form "P iff Q" by proving either "if P, then Q" and "if Q, then P", or "if P, then Q" and "if not-P, then not-Q". Proving these pairs of statements sometimes leads to a more natural proof, since there are not obvious conditions in which one would infer a biconditional directly.