switch statement

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switch statement - Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (26 May 2007) :

  switch statement
  case statement
  multi-way branch
  
     <programming> (Or case statement, multi-way branch) A
     construct found in most high-level languages for selecting
     one of several possible blocks of code or branch destinations
     depending on the value of an expression.  An example in C is
  
     	switch (foo(x, y))
     	 	case 1: printf("Hello\n");	/* fall through */ 	case 2: printf("Goodbye\n"); break; 	case 3: printf("Fish\n"); break; 	default: fprintf(stderr, "Odd foo value\n"); exit(1); 	
                     
  
     The break statements cause execution to continue after the
     whole switch statemetnt.  The lack of a break statement after
     the first case means that execution will fall through into
     the second case.  Since this is a common programming error you
     should add a comment if it is intentional.
  
     If none of the explicit cases matches the expression value
     then the (optional) default case is taken.
  
     A similar construct in some functional languages returns the
     value of one of several expressions selected according to the
     value of the first expression.  A distant relation to the
     modern switch statement is Fortran's computed goto.
  
     (1997-01-30)