While if statements execute code under specific conditions, they don't create true branching in your code. Instead, they guide the interpreter through different paths within your program.

The else Keyword

To introduce branching behavior, you can use the else keyword in combination with if to create conditional statements.

Consider this example:

In the example above, the condition a >= 100 evaluates to false, so the code block within the if statement is not executed. Instead, the code block within the else statement is executed because the if condition is false.

The syntax of the else statement is similar to that of the if statement, except it doesn't require a condition or parentheses ().

Note

When using an else statement, do not place the end-of-command (;) after the if code block ({}), as this will result in a SyntaxError. The if-else statement is considered a single command.