Newbie: Switch Case

[Duncan Booth]

Marcus Laranjeira <m.laranjeira at datacraft.com.br> wrote in
news:mailman.1021913015.15513.python-list at python.org: 

> Is there any switch case control structure in python ? what is the
> syntax ? 
> 
First off, please turn off the HTML formatting in your email program.

No, there is no switch/case control structure in Python. If you tell us why 
you think you need one, I am sure that many of the people here will gladly 
suggest alternatives. To get you started:

If all else fails, use if/elif/else.

If you want to convert an internal numeric value into a string (e.g. to 
print it out), then you might use a list or a dictionary to hold the 
conversions, or you might just use the string value as a token instead of 
mapping it to a number in the first place.

You can also use lists or dictionaries to hold functions, so instead of 
comparing against a lot of possible values you just do a dictionary lookup 
and call the result.

Some people create objects with a 'type' field and use switch statements to 
decide what action to perform on an object. A better way to approach this 
is to make each type of object a different class and then just call an 
overridden function for each action. There are also techniques such as the 
visitor pattern which take this idea further.

-- 
Duncan Booth                                             duncan at rcp.co.uk
int month(char *p){return(124864/((p[0]+p[1]-p[2]&0x1f)+1)%12)["\5\x8\3"
"\6\7\xb\1\x9\xa\2\0\4"];} // Who said my code was obscure?