What is a switch case?

Answer 1

C has two types of conditional statements: if and switch.

An if statement executes a block of code if an expression results in a nonzero value. The code can be followed by an else statement under the condition that the previous if expression resulted in false. For example:

if (n==10) printf("There are 10 somethings.\n");

else if (n==15) printf("There are 15 somethings.\n");

else printf("Something else has occurred.\n");

Switch statements can be used to compare a variable or value with multiple variables or values. It's a simplified version of if and looks like this:

switch (n) {

case 10:

printf("There are 10 somethings.\n");

break;

case 15:

printf("There are 15 somethings.\n");

break;

default:

printf("Something else has occurred.\n");

}

Each of the above case statements is a switch case.

However, switch statements will not replace the following if statement:

if (n==10) printf("There are 10 somethings.\n");

else if (cars=20) printf("There are 20 cars.\n");

switch can only deal with one variable or expression at a time, but the above if statement can handle two (or more).

See the related links below for more information on switch statements.