Switch Statements

If statements are great for making choices, but what if you have a lot of choices? A traffic light has three colors: red, orange and green. You'll have to make two if statements and one else statement. For this example it isn't a lot, but what if we want to make choices between all traffic signs? That requires a lot more if statements and that would make your code messy. There is a statement that makes choosing between a lot of options less messy and it's called the switch statement.

Start a new project called "SwitchStatements".

Add the following code to your "Main" method:

string currentStatusTrafficLight = "red";
switch (currentStatusTrafficLight)
{
case "green":
Console.Write("The traffic light is showing green");
break;
case "orange":
Console.Write("The traffic light is showing orange");
break;
case "red":
Console.Write("The traffic light is showing red!");
break;
}
Console.ReadLine();

A switch statement like any other code is read from top to bottom. Your application starts with "switch (currentStatusTrafficLight)". "Red" is used for this example, so it will compare each case with "Red".

First up is the case "green". The string "red" is not equal to the string "green", so it will not execute the code "Console.Write("The traffic light is showing green");break;)".

Next up is the case "orange". The string "red" is not equal to orange and like last time that means that the code "Console.Write("The traffic light is showing orange");break" will not be executed.

Your last case is "red". The string "red" is equal to "red", so the code "Console.Write("The traffic light is showing red!");break;" will get executed.

"break" will make your application jump out your switch statement, because you don't want it to compare "red" with any more cases. Not that it matters in this example, because there aren't any more cases to compare "red" with. The keyword "break" will also make your application jump out of a loop. This is useful for when you want to search a name in an array and when you found the name you can jump out of the loop, so it doesn't continue the loop when it isn't necessary.

Every case is basically an if statement. Take the following example condition in an if statement: "("red" == "green");". The string "red" is what you put in the switch: "switch ("red")". After that you make a case for the string "green": "case "green":". Your application compares "red" and "green" like in the if statement its condition.

Source Code SwitchStatements Project

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