Conditionals

Making Decisions

If / Else

Go's if statement looks like most languages, minus the parentheses around the condition:

if x > 10 {
    fmt.Println("big")
} else if x > 5 {
    fmt.Println("medium")
} else {
    fmt.Println("small")
}

The braces are mandatory, even for single-line bodies. This eliminates an entire class of bugs that other languages suffer from.

If with Init Statement

Go has a unique feature: you can run a short statement before the condition. The variable you declare is scoped to the if block:

if length := len(name); length > 10 {
    fmt.Println("long name")
} else {
    fmt.Println("short name")
}
// length is not accessible here

This pattern keeps variables tightly scoped. You will see it everywhere in Go, especially with error handling.

Spock would approve of Go's conditionals. Clean, logical, and no room for human error. "Fascinating."

Switch

Go's switch is cleaner than most languages. Cases do not fall through by default, so no break statements are needed:

switch day {
case "Monday":
    fmt.Println("start of the week")
case "Friday":
    fmt.Println("almost weekend")
default:
    fmt.Println("regular day")
}

Switch Without a Condition

A switch with no value acts as a clean alternative to long if-else chains:

switch {
case temp <= 0:
    fmt.Println("freezing")
case temp <= 15:
    fmt.Println("cold")
case temp <= 30:
    fmt.Println("warm")
default:
    fmt.Println("hot")
}

This reads naturally and scales better than nested if-else blocks.

Your Task

Write a function classifyTemp that takes an integer temperature in Celsius and returns a string:

• "freezing" if temp <= 0
• "cold" if temp <= 15
• "warm" if temp <= 30
• "hot" if temp > 30