About switch case statements...

[bearophile]

Don:

> (1) "case A, B, C:" implies a relationship between A, B, and C, which 
> might not exist. They may have nothing in common.

It's just a list of things, it's a syntax people adapts too. Here too there's no relationship between x and foo:
int x, foo;


> (2) it's an extremely common coding style in C, C++.

If automatic fall-through becomes a syntax error, then allowing it for empty case statements is a special case of a special case. This kind of complexity kills languages. As they say in Python Zen:
Special cases aren't special enough to break the rules.
And this is D.


> (3) it's more difficult to read.

You can put items in one column anyway, so instead of:

case someverylongcase:
case anotherverylongcase:
case thelastverylongcase:

You can write:

case someverylongcase,
     anotherverylongcase,
     thelastverylongcase:

This is not so unreadable.

----------------------

Justin Johansson:

> Actually I quite like the brevity you propose but would
> it be a challenge for the comma operator?

That's already standard D syntax :-)
http://codepad.org/ByvTAs27

Bye,
bearophile