Guides:C/C Crash Course/switch
From CoderGuide
The switch Statement
You can nest if and else statements all day, but if all you're doing trying to find out if a=1, a=2, or a=3, then you're better off using a switch statement. It takes the following form:
switch(var){ case 1: do-something; /*If we don't have a break statement here, then we'd start processing the code in the following statement.*/ break; case 2: do-something; break; case 3: do-something; break; default: /*var isn't 1,2, or 3. so now we stop here*/ do-something; break; }
The equivalent code using if else statements is below:
if(a==1){ do-something; }else if(a==2){ do-something; }else if(a==3){ do-something; }else { do-something; }
As you can see, the above switch statement is a lot easier to read.
The switch statement can't compare strings. It only can compare integers and characters. If you want to compare strings, then you'll have to use nested if-else statements and the strcmp() described in the Strings section.
