[Python-Dev] Switch statement (original) (raw)

Georg Brandl g.brandl at gmx.net
Thu Jun 22 17:29:27 CEST 2006

Guido van Rossum wrote:

I've also been wondering whether the 'case' keyword is really necessary? Would any ambiguities or other parsing problems arise if you wrote:

switch x: 1: foo(x) 2: bar(x) It is debatable whether this is more or less readable, but it seemed like an interesting question for the language lawyers. That's no problem for the parser, as long as the expressions are indented. ABC did this. But I think I like an explicit case keyword better; it gives a better error message if the indentation is forgotten.

It also overthrows the notion that suites are started by statements, not by expressions.

Georg

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