Thread: Can someone explain this to me plz...

Switch is actually a selection case similar to If-Then-Else. The switch statement will check for a condition that match the case condition and then perform the function or the statement in it as if you are using If-Then-Else.

Example: If you want to print out Male if user input m and print out Female if user key in f.

Code:

char gender

printf("Enter your gender: ");
scanf("%c", &gender);

switch(gender)
{
     case 'm' : printf("Your gender is male\n");
                     break;
     case 'f' : printf("Your gender is female\n");
                   break;
     default: break;
}

Understand how it actually worked? The default case is actually for wrong or unmatched condition...

A few things to keep in mind:

Code:

int x,y;

y = prompt_for_y( );
switch( y )
{
    case 'x': /* this is the character x, not the variable x */
    char x: /*this would work if x was a constant variable and not just a variable */
    char 1: /* this means if y is the decimal value of 1 then this is true */
    char '1': /* this would be if y contained the decimal value for the character '1' */
}

Furthermore:

Code:

case <something>:
    { /* optional */
        printf("Wheee...");
        printf("Ooooo...");
        printf("Aaaa...");
    } /* optional */
break; /* optional */

Anything tagged "optional" is just that. You do not need the { } in a cast statement unless you're going to define new variables there.

You do not need the break statement unless you don't want your case statement to "cascade" down the list. If you want it to only execute a single case, then you need a break statement.

Quzah.

Thanks netboy and quzah, the examples helped, I just didn't understand how if you had switch(d) or whatever how the program would know what to do because I thought that(by an earlier example from somewhere) that case 'a' meant number 1 like it was first, not like it was a variable or if the answer was a do this, thanks though I get it now