How does if(0) work within a function?

I am looking at somebody else's code and found a function that looks like the following. As you can see below, I do not find any flag or if statement that precedes if(0) or any logical flag being used while calling the function. I would like to know how the right conditional is arrived at based on if(0) in this situation.

function [a,b] = updateParam(x,y,z)
% x,y,z are structures that are unpacked.
[e, f, g] = unpackX(x);
[h, i, j] = unpackY(y);
[k, l, m] = unpackZ(z);
for t = 1:k
if (0)
% perform these operations
else
% perform other operations
end
end

Answer 1

[David Goodmanson]

Hello Padma, if(0) always comes up false, so the operations after the 'else' statement will always be performed. It's a low-rent way to throw a switch so that the operations before the 'else' statement never happen.

[Padma Sharma]

Thank you very much David! This is very helpful.