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

Greg Ewing greg.ewing at canterbury.ac.nz
Mon Jun 26 00:58:27 CEST 2006

Guido van Rossum wrote:

I'm currently leaning towards making static expressions outside a function illegal and limit switches outside a function to compile-time-constant expressions.

I'm not sure I like the idea of having things that are illegal outside a function, because it can be a nuisance for code refactoring.

I'd be happy if case worked at the top level, but wasn't any faster than if-elses. That wouldn't be so bad -- top-level code is already slower due to global variable accesses.

Also I don't care what happens if you change the case values of a top-level case. It's undefined behaviour anyway.

-- Greg

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