Quick Reference

1.2.3.1 General if and else constructs

The most general form of the if statement is:

if (condition) statement_if_true; else statement_if_false;

When you need to choose among several alternatives, make the else clause itself an if statement:

if (condition_1) statement_if_1; else if (condition_2) statement_if_2; else if (condition_3) statement_if_3; ... else statement_if_none;

The final else is always optional -- if it is not present, nothing at all happens if none of the conditions is satisfied.

Often you need to execute more than one statement conditionally. Quite generally in Yorick, you may group several statements into a single compound statement by means of curly braces:

{ statement_1; statement_2; statement_3; statement_4; }

Ordinarily, both curly braces and each of the statements should be written on a separate line, with the statements indented to make their membership in the compound more obvious. Further, in an if-else construction, when one branch requires more than one statement, you should write every branch as a compound statement with curly braces. Therefore, for a four branch if in which the second if requires two statements, and the else three, write this:

if (condition_1) { statement_if_1; } else if (condition_2) { statement_if_2_A; statement_if_2_B; } else if (condition_3) { statement_if_3; } else { statement_if_none_A; statement_if_none_B; statement_if_none_C; }

The else statement has a very unusual syntax: It is the only statement in Yorick which depends on the form of the previous statement; an else must follow an if. Because Yorick statements outside functions (and compound statements) are executed immediately, you must be very careful using else in such a situation. If the if has already been executed (as it would be in the examples without curly braces), the following else leads to a syntax error!

The best way to avoid this puzzling problem is to always use the curly brace syntax of the latest example when you use else outside a function. (You don't often need it in such a context anyway.)