Conditionals (if statements)

In this lesson you will learn how to write if statements in Kotlin so your program can branch based on a condition. This is for anyone searching for "Kotlin if statement syntax".

if / else if / else handles conditional branching. It helps to picture it as translating an everyday decision such as "if it is raining, take an umbrella" into code.

The sample code prints one of three messages depending on score using if / else if / else. Comparisons use operators such as >, <, and ==, and stacking more else if clauses expresses three or more branches naturally.

A common stumbling block for beginners is not realising that Kotlin's if can also be used as an "expression". A conditional that returns a value (an if expression) is covered in a later lesson; here you need the plain if statement first.

In real-world development if statements appear in almost every app, from validating input to switching behaviour based on state.