Conditionals (if statements)

This lesson covers writing if statements in C, so you can branch logic based on a condition. It's for anyone searching "C if statement syntax."

if / else if / else branches your logic. It helps to picture it as translating a human decision — "if it's raining, bring an umbrella" — into code.

The example uses if / else if / else to display one of three messages depending on the value of score. Comparisons use operators like >, <, and ==, and stacking more else ifs lets you naturally express three or more branches.

A common early mistake is not knowing that historically, C had no dedicated boolean type — 0 is treated as false, and anything else as true. Not knowing this can lead to misreading what a condition actually means.

In real projects, the if statement is a basic building block used in nearly every program — validating input, branching logic based on state, and more.

📖 Reference code

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void) {
    int score = 85;
    if (score >= 80) {
        printf("Great job!\n");
    } else if (score >= 60) {
        printf("You passed\n");
    } else {
        printf("Try again next time\n");
    }
    return 0;
}

✍️ Your code

Type your code, then press "Run"

🧪 This site can't compile or run C directly, so it checks on the spot whether what you typed matches the reference code (scoring happens entirely in your browser — nothing is sent anywhere).