The conditional structure we’ve learned can be chained together to check as many conditions as are required by our program.

Imagine our program is now selecting the appropriate course for a student. We’ll check their submission to find the correct course enrollment.

The conditional statement now has multiple conditions that are evaluated from the top down:

String course = "Theatre";

if (course.equals("Biology")) {

  // Enroll in Biology course

} else if (course.equals("Algebra")) {

  // Enroll in Algebra course

} else if (course.equals("Theatre")) {

  // Enroll in Theatre course

} else {

  System.out.println("Course not found!");

}

The first condition to evaluate to true will have that code block run. Here’s an example demonstrating the order:

int testScore = 72;

if (testScore >= 90) {

  System.out.println("A");

} else if (testScore >= 80) {

  System.out.println("B");

} else if (testScore >= 70) {

  System.out.println("C");

} else if (testScore >= 60) {

  System.out.println("D");

} else {

  System.out.println("F");

}
// prints: C

This chained conditional statement has two conditions that evaluate true. Because testScore >= 70 comes before testScore >= 60, only the earlier code block is run.

Note: Only one of the code blocks will run.