switch case for constants-only?

[Nick Sabalausky]

"BCS" <none at anon.com> wrote in message 
news:a6268ffdcba8cc43e0db895786 at news.digitalmars.com...
> Hello Nick,
>
>> Also, I still don't see how there's any semantic difference between
>> the current switch and the switch-like if-else chain other than just
>> the fact that switch currently carries the restriction that the values
>> being checked against must be unique and known at compile time.
>>
>
> For one; fall thought (but that can be done with gotos or some really ugly 
> nested if's:
>

Right, it all maps out.

> The other thing is that a compiler is free to be implemented a switch 
> statement any way it wants including things like perfect hashes or (for 
> strings) a RegEx style DFA. This does have semantic effects in the O() of 
> the construct.
>

I'd consider that more a matter of optimization. I know there's a lot of 
people here that disagree with me on this, but I don't consider time 
complexity a semantics issue, except for very, very explicit cases or 
possibly for (true) real-time.

> I'll grant that what you are asking for is useful. But I will not go so 
> far as to say that the current switch construct or even it's name (it has 
> about as much to do with switch as for has to do with while)

*shrug* I've alwayd thought of while as nothing more than (a very welcome) 
syntactic sugar for 'for'.

> should be co opted for it. I'll even go so far as to say that I really 
> doubt that the current switch will atrophy even if another construct is 
> added with these features.
>
>