This is listed in the documentation above, but it's a bit tucked away between the paragraphs. The difference between a series of if statements and the switch statement is that the expression you're comparing with, is evaluated only once in a switch statement. I think this fact needs a little bit more attention, so here's an example:
<?php
$a = 0;
if(++$a == 3) echo 3;
elseif(++$a == 2) echo 2;
elseif(++$a == 1) echo 1;
else echo "No match!";
// Outputs: 2
$a = 0;
switch(++$a) {
case 3: echo 3; break;
case 2: echo 2; break;
case 1: echo 1; break;
default: echo "No match!"; break;
}
// Outputs: 1
?>
It is therefore perfectly safe to do:
<?php
switch(winNobelPrizeStartingFromBirth()) {
case "peace": echo "You won the Nobel Peace Prize!"; break;
case "physics": echo "You won the Nobel Prize in Physics!"; break;
case "chemistry": echo "You won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry!"; break;
case "medicine": echo "You won the Nobel Prize in Medicine!"; break;
case "literature": echo "You won the Nobel Prize in Literature!"; break;
default: echo "You bought a rusty iron medal from a shady guy who insists it's a Nobel Prize..."; break;
}
?>
without having to worry about the function being re-evaluated for every case. There's no need to preemptively save the result in a variable either.
switch
(PHP 4, PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8)
The switch statement is similar to a series of
IF statements on the same expression. In many occasions, you may
want to compare the same variable (or expression) with many
different values, and execute a different piece of code depending
on which value it equals to. This is exactly what the
switch statement is for.
Notă: Note that unlike some other languages, the continue statement applies to
switchand acts similar tobreak. If you have aswitchinside a loop and wish to continue to the next iteration of the outer loop, usecontinue 2.
Notă:
Note that switch/case does loose comparison.
The following two examples are two different ways to write the
same thing, one using a series of if and
elseif statements, and the other using the
switch statement:
Example #1 switch structure
<?php
if ($i == 0) {
echo "i equals 0";
} elseif ($i == 1) {
echo "i equals 1";
} elseif ($i == 2) {
echo "i equals 2";
}
switch ($i) {
case 0:
echo "i equals 0";
break;
case 1:
echo "i equals 1";
break;
case 2:
echo "i equals 2";
break;
}
?>
Example #2 switch structure allows usage of strings
<?php
switch ($i) {
case "apple":
echo "i is apple";
break;
case "bar":
echo "i is bar";
break;
case "cake":
echo "i is cake";
break;
}
?>
It is important to understand how the switch
statement is executed in order to avoid mistakes. The
switch statement executes line by line
(actually, statement by statement). In the beginning, no code is
executed. Only when a case statement is found
whose expression evaluates to a value that matches the value of the
switch expression does PHP begin to execute the
statements. PHP continues to execute the statements until the end
of the switch block, or the first time it sees
a break statement. If you don't write a
break statement at the end of a case's
statement list, PHP will go on executing the statements of the
following case. For example:
<?php
switch ($i) {
case 0:
echo "i equals 0";
case 1:
echo "i equals 1";
case 2:
echo "i equals 2";
}
?>
Here, if $i is equal to 0, PHP would execute all of the echo
statements! If $i is equal to 1, PHP would execute the last two
echo statements. You would get the expected behavior ('i equals 2'
would be displayed) only if $i is equal to 2. Thus,
it is important not to forget break statements
(even though you may want to avoid supplying them on purpose under
certain circumstances).
In a switch statement, the condition is
evaluated only once and the result is compared to each
case statement. In an elseif
statement, the condition is evaluated again. If your condition is
more complicated than a simple compare and/or is in a tight loop,
a switch may be faster.
The statement list for a case can also be empty, which simply passes control into the statement list for the next case.
<?php
switch ($i) {
case 0:
case 1:
case 2:
echo "i is less than 3 but not negative";
break;
case 3:
echo "i is 3";
}
?>
A special case is the default case. This case matches
anything that wasn't matched by the other cases. For example:
<?php
switch ($i) {
case 0:
echo "i equals 0";
break;
case 1:
echo "i equals 1";
break;
case 2:
echo "i equals 2";
break;
default:
echo "i is not equal to 0, 1 or 2";
}
?>
Notă: Multiple default cases will raise a
E_COMPILE_ERRORerror.
The alternative syntax for control structures is supported with switches. For more information, see Alternative syntax for control structures.
<?php
switch ($i):
case 0:
echo "i equals 0";
break;
case 1:
echo "i equals 1";
break;
case 2:
echo "i equals 2";
break;
default:
echo "i is not equal to 0, 1 or 2";
endswitch;
?>
It's possible to use a semicolon instead of a colon after a case like:
<?php
switch($beer)
{
case 'tuborg';
case 'carlsberg';
case 'heineken';
echo 'Good choice';
break;
default;
echo 'Please make a new selection...';
break;
}
?>
add a note
User Contributed Notes 6 notes
MaxTheDragon at home dot nl ¶
12 years ago
septerrianin at mail dot ru ¶
6 years ago
php 7.2.8.
The answer to the eternal question " what is faster?":
1 000 000 000 iterations.
<?php
$s = time();
for ($i = 0; $i < 1000000000; ++$i) {
$x = $i%10;
if ($x == 1) {
$y = $x * 1;
} elseif ($x == 2) {
$y = $x * 2;
} elseif ($x == 3) {
$y = $x * 3;
} elseif ($x == 4) {
$y = $x * 4;
} elseif ($x == 5) {
$y = $x * 5;
} elseif ($x == 6) {
$y = $x * 6;
} elseif ($x == 7) {
$y = $x * 7;
} elseif ($x == 8) {
$y = $x * 8;
} elseif ($x == 9) {
$y = $x * 9;
} else {
$y = $x * 10;
}
}
print("if: ".(time() - $s)."sec\n");
$s = time();
for ($i = 0; $i < 1000000000; ++$i) {
$x = $i%10;
switch ($x) {
case 1:
$y = $x * 1;
break;
case 2:
$y = $x * 2;
break;
case 3:
$y = $x * 3;
break;
case 4:
$y = $x * 4;
break;
case 5:
$y = $x * 5;
break;
case 6:
$y = $x * 6;
break;
case 7:
$y = $x * 7;
break;
case 8:
$y = $x * 8;
break;
case 9:
$y = $x * 9;
break;
default:
$y = $x * 10;
}
}
print("switch: ".(time() - $s)."sec\n");
?>
Results:
if: 69sec
switch: 42sec
nospam at please dot com ¶
24 years ago
Just a trick I have picked up:
If you need to evaluate several variables to find the first one with an actual value, TRUE for instance. You can do it this was.
There is probably a better way but it has worked out well for me.
switch (true) {
case (X != 1):
case (Y != 1):
default:
}
me at czarpino dot com ¶
2 years ago
Although noted elsewhere, still worth noting is how loose comparison in switch-case was also affected by the change in string to number comparison. Prior PHP8, strings were converted to int before comparison. The reverse is now true which can cause issues for logic that relied on this behavior.
<?php
function testSwitch($key) {
switch ($key) {
case 'non numeric string':
echo $key . ' matches "non numeric string"';
break;
}
}
testSwitch(0); // pre-PHP8, returns '0 matches "non numeric string"'
?>
j dot kane dot third at gmail dot com ¶
2 years ago
The default case appears to always be evaluated last. If break is excluded from the default case, then the proceeding cases will be reevaluated. This behavior appears to be undocumented.
<?php
$kinds = ['moo', 'kind1', 'kind2'];
foreach ($kinds as $kind) {
switch($kind)
{
default:
// The kind wasn't valid, set it to the default
$kind = 'kind1';
var_dump('default');
case 'kind1':
var_dump('1');
break;
case 'kind2':
var_dump('2');
break;
case 'kindn':
var_dump('n-th');
break;
}
echo "\n\n";
}
?>
GeorgNation ¶
1 year ago
You can wrap up the case/break block with a curly braces:
$x = 2;
switch ($x)
{
case 2: {
echo '2 entrypoint';
break;
}
default: {
echo 'default entrypoint';
break;
}
}
