IF statement with logical OR [duplicate]

This is how I read the above. If 1 is equal to 2 or 4, then print true. Otherwise, print false. When this is executed though... true is printed. Obviously I'm misunderstanding something here. 1 is not equal to 2 or 4. Wouldn't that make it false?

No, 1 is equal to 2 or 4. 4 is true (because it's not zero). So anything "or 4" is also true. Therefore "1 is equal to 2 or 4" is true.

In this your phrase

If 1 is equal to 2 or 4, then print true

you need to add a pair of words that to get a correct equivalent C++ phrase

If 1 is equal to 2 or is equal to 4, then print true

Thus it will look the following way

if ( 1 == 2 or 1 == 4 ){cout << "True";}else{cout<<"False";}

As for the original condition

1 == 2 || 4

then the compiler consideres it the following way (due to the priorities of the operators):

( 1 == 2 ) || 4

According to the C++ Stanbdard

The operators == and != both yield true or false, i.e., a result oftype bool.

So as 1 == 2 is equal to false then you get

false || 4

where 4 as it is not equal to 0 is converted to boolean true and as result the entire condition evaluates to true

It's evaluating to true because if you check for the boolean value of just an integer (like you're doing with the number 4), it will evaluate to true. Like the people said above, you have to split it up.

This not how if statements work in C++. If you want to know if something is equal to one thing or another thing then it is

if (this == this_thing || this == another_thing)

What you have

if(1 == 2 || 4)

Gets evaluated to

if ((1 == 2) || 4)if (false || true)if (true)

So the if statement will always be true.