PHP switch case statement

The switch case statement can be very usefull and makes your code more readable if you need to make a lot of decisions with the if - elseif - else statement. Let's suppose the following example where we use the if-else sollution:

Code: 
$x = 3;
if ($x == 0){
   echo "0";
} elseif ($x == 1){
   echo "1";
} elseif ($x == 2){
   echo "2";
} elseif ($x == 3){
   echo "3";
} elseif ($x == 4){
   echo "4";
} else {
   echo "Not recognized";
}
PHP F1

In this code we compare the same variable with many different values using the if statement. However this is the case where we could use the switch - case control strucure as well like this:

Code: 
$x = 3;
switch ($x){
   case 0:
      echo "0";
      break;
   case 1:
      echo "1";
      break;
   case 2:
      echo "2";
      break;
   case 3:
      echo "3";
      break;
   case 4:
      echo "4";
      break;
}
PHP F1

Although the switch sollution doesn't result a shorter code but it is a bit easier to understand. However you have to take care of the break statements which works as a code block terminator.

This example is not exactly the same as the "if" version as for example in case of $x=10 this code prints nothing. To solve this we can extend our switch statement.

 

To solve the previous problem we can extend our code with a default part. The code in this block works as the else block in case of the if satetement. So the complete switch statement will look like this:

Code: 
$x = 13;
switch ($x){
   case 0:
      echo "0";
      break;
   case 1:
      echo "1";
      break;
   case 2:
      echo "2";
      break;
   case 3:
      echo "3";
      break;
   case 4:
      echo "4";
      break;
   default:
      echo "Not recognized";
      break;   
}
PHP F1

The default case matches anything that wasn't matched by the other cases, and should be the last case. statement.