Learn to Program, 2nd Edition

Branching

Branching is a simple concept, but it’s powerful. In fact, it’s so simple that I bet I don’t even have to explain it at all; I’ll just show you:

puts 'Hello, what\'s your name?'
name = gets.chomp
puts 'Hello, ' + name + '.'
if name == 'Chris'
  puts 'What a lovely name!'
end

Hello, what's your name?
Chris
Hello, Chris.
What a lovely name!

But if we put in a different name…

Hello, what's your name?
Chewbacca
Hello, Chewbacca.

And that is branching. If what comes after the if is true, we run the code between the if and the end. If what comes after the if is false, we don’t. Plain and simple.

I indented the code between the if and the end just because I think it’s easier to keep track of the branching that ...