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nicolaspeterson
8,569 PointsWhat's the difference between if and elif?
I don't quite get why we needed elif for the demo in this video. What is the utility of using elif instead of multiple if statements?
1 Answer
![Chris Freeman](https://uploads.teamtreehouse.com/production/profile-photos/1153532/micro_image.jpg)
Chris Freeman
Treehouse Moderator 68,425 PointsHey nicolaspeterson, good question.
The advantage of an if
followed by elif
as opposed to two if
statements is that the elif
(and any subsequent else
code blocks) are only executed if the first if
condition evaluates as FALSE
.
Logically the elif
can assume the previous if
(and previous elif
) statements have evaluated falsely.
One example is the classic FizzBuzz solution:
div3 = num % 3 == 0
div5 = num % 5 == 0
if div3 and div5:
print(f”{num} is FIZZBUZZ!”)
elif div3:
print(f”{num} is FIZZ”)
elif div5:
print(f”{num} is BUZZ!”)
else:
print(f”{num} is {num}!”)
if the above simply used all if
statements, multiple strings would print when a number is divisible by 15.
Post back if you need more help. Good luck!!!