This section covers how to use conditions for branching, breaking, or otherwise controlling your code.

A conditional statement delimits a block that will be executed if the condition is true. An optional block starting with the keyword else will be executed if the condition is not fulfilled (see Figure 1.4). We demonstrate this by printing, , the absolute value of :

The Python equivalent is as follows:

x = ...
if x >= 0:
    print(x)
else:
    print(-x)

Any object can be tested for the truth value, for use in an if or while statement. The rules for how the truth values are obtained are explained in Section 2.3.2, Boolean casting.