switch statement

programming (Or case statement, multi-way branch) A

construct found in most high-level languages for selecting

one of several possible blocks of code or branch destinations

depending on the value of an expression. An example in C is

switch (foo(x, y))

case 1: printf(\"Hellon\"); /* fall through */case 2: printf(\"Goodbyen\"); break;case 3: printf(\"Fishn\"); break;default: fprintf(stderr, \"Odd foo valuen\"); exit(1);

The break statements cause execution to continue after the

whole switch statemetnt. The lack of a break statement after

the first case means that execution will fall through into

the second case. Since this is a common programming error you

should add a comment if it is intentional.

If none of the explicit cases matches the expression value

then the (optional) default case is taken.

A similar construct in some functional languages returns the

value of one of several expressions selected according to the

value of the first expression. A distant relation to the

modern switch statement is Fortran's computed goto.

(1997-01-30)