if/elseif being treated as if/if

Hey folks, Here's the deal. I have the following code: if($col_vals[$i][$val['column']] == $search_result[0][$col]) { echo ' selected="selected"'; } elseif($val['default'] == $col_vals[$i][$val['column']]) { echo ' selected="selected"'; } It's supposed to check whether there's a value in the db ($search_result[0][$col]) that matches the current column value, and if not, check whether the default matches it. It does that, sort of. In fact, both statements trigger, which I would have said wasn't possible. So the question is: what causes both parts of an if/elseif statement to trigger? As far as I can see my punctuation is correct, and I've confirmed through debugging statements that all the values are what I expect, so how do I make the elseif stop acting like another if? Or, alternatively, have I just misunderstood all this time what the if/elseif statement does? Thanks, Alex