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Java

Posted by Diego Murray
Diego Murray
2,515 Points

switch() OR if()

When is an appropriate time to use a switch statement instead of an if statement? Can you please provide some examples?

Diego

1 Answer

Greg Kaleka
Greg Kaleka
39,021 Points

Hi Diego,

I'm not a Java guy, but the concept is the same across languages.

You want to use Switch statements any time you're checking one variable against a bunch of possible values. For example, let's say you were checking to see what option someone chose from a drop-down. Rather than using an if statement to see if they chose the first option, else if they chose the second option, else if they chose the third option, etc., you can use a switch statement.

I'm not sure if Java uses enumerations, or enums, but they are a great use case for switch statements: there's a defined number of choices, and you can check all of them in your switch statement.

if and if-else statements should be used for simpler checks.

Hope this helps!

Cheers :beers:

-Greg