Nested if's with mutually excluding conditions

A common use of nested if's is when the conditions in the nested if's are mutually excluding, i.e., no two of them can be simultaneously true.

Example: Based on the value of the temperature (an integer) print a message according to the following table:

temperature t	message
30 < t	hot
20 < t < = 30	warm
10 < t < = 20	fine
t < = 10	cold

int temp;
...
if (30 < temp)
  System.out.println("hot");
else if (20 < temp)
  System.out.println("warm");
else if (10 < temp)
  System.out.println("fine");
else
  System.out.println("cold");

Observations:

• At the outermost level we have a single if-else statement.
• The order in which the conditions are specified is important.
• The second condition need not be composite, e.g., (20 < temp) && (temp <= 30), since it appears in the else-branch of the first condition. Hence, we already know that (temp <= 30) is true.
• Each else refers to the if that immediately precedes it.