Discussion on: I've never become overly convinced that switch statements are that much cleaner than `if else if else if else if else`

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That's why we never have switch in Python 😁

And, the dictionary is always a better and cleaner alternative for the ugly switch.

def my_switcher(x):
    return {
        'a': 1,
        'b': 2,
    }[x]


print(my_switcher('a'))
print(my_switcher('b'))

Jeremy Grifski • Jun 28 '19

Whenever I think about why I don't like a certain way a language does something, I realize it always goes back to my love for Python. That language has ruined me. haha

Yaser Al-Najjar • Jun 28 '19

❤ for the utmost ruining lang.

Kyle Galbraith • Jun 28 '19

Really love this pattern. I have seen various approaches to the default case that vary across languages.

Esteban Hernández • Jun 28 '19

How would you handle a default case in this?

My though is to add || defaultValue at the end since a failure to match any property will return undefined. Thoughts?

Yaser Al-Najjar • Jun 28 '19 • Edited

That would be handy using a try except:

def my_switcher(x):
    switches = {
        'a': 1,
        'b': 2,
    }
    default = 3

    try:
        result = switches[x]
    except KeyError:
        result = default

    return result



print(my_switcher('a'))
print(my_switcher('b'))
print(my_switcher('c'))

I added the extra default variable just to make the code self explanatory.

EDIT: Bad solution, look at the other comments.

rhymes • Jun 28 '19

You can also use defaultdict in the standard library :D

Pedro Mendes • Jun 28 '19 • Edited

This is clean :D

Esteban Hernández • Jun 29 '19

This is the answer to this entire thread.

Yaser Al-Najjar • Jun 29 '19

@rhymes and @pedromendes96 got it better than me 😁

Giovanni Cortés • Jun 29 '19 • Edited

Elixir :)

def my_switcher("a"), do: 1
def my_switcher("b"), do: 2
def my_switcher(), do: 3

iex(1)> Example.my_switcher("a")
1
iex(2)> Example.my_switcher("b")
2
iex(3)> Example.my_switcher()
3

kip • Jun 29 '19

Pattern matching to the rescue ?

Francisco Quintero 🇨🇴 • Jul 5 '19

Isn't this feature called method overloading ? 🤔

Giovanni Cortés • Sep 14 '20

No, because overloading is have same parameters with different types, but in patter matching you can have the same type and number of parameters but differs in the content. For example, here!

Sean Washington • Jun 29 '19

I quite like cond as well for certain situations as well.