Slide 7.6: The switch statement

The switch Statement

The switch statement is a multiway branch statement. It provides an easy way to dispatch execution to different parts of code based on the value of the expression.

01switch ( expression ) {
02  case value1:
03    statement1;
04    break;
05  case value2:
06    statement2;
07    break;
08      .
09      .
10  case valueN:
11    statementN;
12    break;
13  default:
14    statementDefault;
15}

This is how it works:

The switch expression is evaluated once.

The value of the expression is compared with the value of each case.

If there is a match, the associated block of code is executed.

The break and default keywords are optional.

01int day = 4;
02switch ( day ) {
03  case 1:
04    System.out.println( "Monday" );
05    break;
06  case 2:
07    System.out.println( "Tuesday" );
08    break;
09  case 3:
10    System.out.println( "Wednesday" );
11    break;
12  case 4:
13    System.out.println( "Thursday" );
14    break;
15  case 5:
16    System.out.println( "Friday" );
17    break;
18  case 6:
19    System.out.println( "Saturday" );
20    break;
21  case 7:
22    System.out.println( "Sunday" );
23    break;
24}    // Output: Thursday