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

Guido van Rossum guido at python.org
Mon Jun 26 01:09:46 CEST 2006

On 6/25/06, Greg Ewing <greg.ewing at canterbury.ac.nz> wrote:

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.

Fair enough. I wasn't leaning very strongly anyway. :-)

-- --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)

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