Python, why elif keyword? [closed]

Far as I know, it’s there to avoid excessive indentation. You could write

if x < 0:
    print 'Negative'
else:
    if x == 0:
        print 'Zero'
    else:
        print 'Positive'

but

if x < 0:
    print 'Negative'
elif x == 0:
    print 'Zero'
else:
    print 'Positive'

is just so much nicer.

Thanks to ign for the docs reference:

The keyword elif is short for ‘else if’, and is useful to avoid excessive indentation.