Submission: switch (...) instanceof feature (original) (raw)

Joe Darcy Joe.Darcy at Sun.COM
Mon Mar 30 21:43:22 PDT 2009

Jeroen van Maanen wrote:

I'd like to coin a switch (...) instanceof statement as a new feature of the Java language. Please accept the attached proposal for review.

Regards, Jeroen

Hello.

I largely concur with the feedback on this proposal already sent to the list; for examples, questions on fall-though semantics, ordering of type checks and subtypting, etc.

I suggesting looking over my strings in switch proposal for other potential issues with modifying the switch statement: http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/coin-dev/2009-February/000001.html

However, I general don't favor this vein of modification to the switch statement.

On a related note, I'm at most lukewarm toward switching on class literals. Class literals are constants of a sort, loadable by the "load constant" JVM instruction, and from that standpoint are a reasonable value to switch on, just like other kinds of constants. However, off hand I only know of one section of code in the JDK that would benefit from this capability so there doesn't seem to be a strong case for adding it.

-Joe

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