Up: The switch Statement [Contents][Index]

#### 10.2.1 Notes for the C Programmer

The `switch` statement is also available in the widely used C programming language. There are, however, some differences between the statement in Octave and C

- Cases are exclusive, so they don’t ‘fall through’ as do the cases in the `switch` statement of the C language.
- The command_list elements are not optional. Making the list optional would have meant requiring a separator between the label and the command list. Otherwise, things like

      switch (foo)
        case (1) -2
        …

  would produce surprising results, as would

      switch (foo)
        case (1)
        case (2)
          doit ();
        …

  particularly for C programmers. If `doit()` should be executed if foo is either `1` or `2`, the above code should be written with a cell array like this

      switch (foo)
        case { 1, 2 }
          doit ();
        …