Simple if-else question

[MRAB]

Ethan Furman wrote:
> Sandy wrote:
>> Hi all,
>> A simple and silly if-else question.
>> I saw some code that has the following structure. My question is why
>> else is used there though removing else
>> has the same result. More important, is it not syntactically wrong :-(
>>
>> for i in xrange(8):
>>     if i < 4:
>>         print i
>> else:
>>     print i
>>
>> Cheers,
>> dksr
> 
> The else is not tied to the if, it is tied to the for.  The statements 
> in a for-else (and while-else, and if-else) only execute if the control 
> expression becomes False.  If you want to avoid executing the else 
> clause, you have to break out of the loop.
> 
> Some examples:
> 
> In [1]: for i in xrange(8):
>    ...:     if i < 4:
>    ...:         print i
>    ...:
> 0
> 1
> 2
> 3
> 
> In [2]: for i in xrange(8):
>    ...:     if i < 4:
>    ...:         print i
>    ...: else:
>    ...:     print i
>    ...:
> 0
> 1
> 2
> 3
> 7
> 
> In [3]: for i in xrange(8):
>    ...:     if i < 4:
>    ...:         print i
>    ...:     if i == 1:
>    ...:         break
>    ...: else:
>    ...:     print i
>    ...:
> 0
> 1
> 
> Hope this helps!
> 
The example that makes it clearest for me is searching through a list
for a certain item and breaking out of the 'for' loop if I find it. If I
get to the end of the list and still haven't broken out then I haven't
found the item, and that's when the else statement takes effect:

for item in my_list:
     if item == desired_item:
         print "Found it!"
         break
else:
     print "It's not in the list"