2️⃣ Selection — Multiple Conditions with elif

Sometimes there are more than two possible outcomes. For example, a player's health might be high, medium, low, or zero — four different situations that need four different responses.

In Python, we use elif (short for "else if") to check additional conditions:

🐍 Python — Multiple conditions with if/elif/else

player_health = 30

if player_health <= 0:
    print("GAME OVER!")
elif player_health <= 25:
    print("WARNING: Health critical!")
elif player_health <= 50:
    print("Health is getting low...")
else:
    print("Health is fine.")

🔍 How Python Reads This

Python checks the conditions from top to bottom and runs the first one that is True:

Is player_health <= 0? → 30 <= 0 is False → skip
Is player_health <= 25? → 30 <= 25 is False → skip
Is player_health <= 50? → 30 <= 50 is True → run this block!
Else is not reached because a condition was already True

Try changing player_health to 10, then 0, then 80, and run each time to see how the output changes.

📝 Same Algorithm in Pseudocode

BEGIN

  player_health ← 30

  IF player_health ≤ 0 THEN

    DISPLAY "GAME OVER!"

  ELSE IF player_health ≤ 25 THEN

    DISPLAY "WARNING: Health critical!"

  ELSE IF player_health ≤ 50 THEN

    DISPLAY "Health is getting low..."

  ELSE

    DISPLAY "Health is fine."

  END IF

END

📋 Comparison Operators

Symbol	Meaning	Example	Result
==	Is equal to	5 == 5	True
!=	Is NOT equal to	5 != 3	True
>	Greater than	10 > 5	True
<	Less than	3 < 7	True
>=	Greater than or equal to	5 >= 5	True
<=	Less than or equal to	3 <= 7	True

Note: We use == (double equals) to check if two things are equal. A single = means "store this value." This is a very common beginner mistake!