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Switch Expression

A switch statement is a type of selection control mechanism used to allow the value of a variable or expression to change the control flow of program execution via a multiway branch.

Switch statements come in two main variants: a structured switch, as in Pascal, which takes exactly one branch, and an unstructured switch, as in C, which functions as a type of goto. ** The SARL language uses structured switchs. **

Important Note The switch expression is very different from Java’s switch statement. The use of switch is not limited to certain values, but can be used for any object reference. The operator == or its Java-equivalent Object.equals(Object) are used to compare the value in the case with the one you are switching over.

1. Switch Cases

Consider the following example.

switch myString {
case 'some' : "It's some string."
case 'other' : "another string."
}

The main expression myString is evaluated first and then compared to each case sequentially. If the case expression is of type boolean, the case matches if the expression evaluates to true. If it is not of type boolean it is compared to the value of the main expression using the operator ==.

If a case is a match, the case expression after the colon is evaluated and is the result of the whole switch expression, e.g. "It's some string.". Note that there is no need for a break keyword; as in Java the case following the matching case is never evaluated, due to the structured nature of the switch statement in SARL.

The main expression, i.e. the parameter of switch can also be a computed value instead of a field or variable.

Important Note A case must contains an expression. If you want to do nothing for a given case, put an empty block after the colon character.

2. Default Case

If none of the cases is matching, the default case matches automatically if it is specified in the code.

switch myString {
case 'some' : "It's some string."
case 'other' : "another string."
default: "default string"
}

3. Case Guards

Consider the following example.

switch myString {
case 'some' : "It's some string."
case 'other' : "another string."
case myString.length > 5 : "It's a long string."
}

The expression myString.length > 5 is the guard of the case. The associated case matches only if the guard expression is evaluated to true. In the example above, the third case matches only if the value of myString has length greater than 5.

4. Type Guards

In addition to the case guard described in the previous section, you can specify a type guard.

The case only matches if the switch value conforms to a given type. A case with both a type guard and a predicate only matches if both conditions match. If the switch value is a field, parameter or variable, it is automatically casted to the given type within the predicate and the case body.

switch myString {
String case myString.length == 5 : "It's string of length 5."
String : "a string."
}

5. Fall Through

You can have multiple type guards and cases separated with a comma, to have all of them share the same then part.

In the following example, the value a string is replied if one of the two first cases matches. Otherwise, the value associated to the default case is used.

switch myString {
case myString.length==5,
case 'some' : "a string"
default: "Default"
}

6. Acknowledgements

This documentation is inspired by the documentations from the Xtext and Xtend projects.

Copyright © 2014-2024 SARL.io, the Original Authors and Main Authors.

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