Methods: Communicating with Objects

A second version of the if statement incorporates an else clause into the structure. This allows us to execute either of two separate statements (simple or compound) as the result of one boolean expression. For example, the statement

will print “Player One” if player == 1 is true. Otherwise, it will print “Player Two”.

As in the case of the simple if statement, the keyword if is followed by a parenthesized boolean expression, which is followed by statement1, which may be either simple or compound. If statement1 is a simple statement, then it is followed by a semicolon. The else clause follows immediately after statement1. It begins with the keyword else, which is followed by statement2, which can also be either a simple or compound statement. Note that there is no boolean expression following the else keyword. In an if-else statement, the boolean expression following the keyword if goes with both the if and else clauses.

Semantically, the if-else statement has the following interpretation: If the boolean expression is true, execute statement1; otherwise execute statement2. This interpretation is shown in Figure 3.13.