C++ – switch case vs if else

c++compilationif-statementswitch-statement

I was wondering if there was any difference in the way the following code was compiled into assembly. I've heard that switch-case is more efficient than if else, but in this example I am not quite sure if that would be the case.

if(x==1){
...
}else if(x==2){
...
}else{
...
}

and

switch(x){
 case 1:
 ...
 break;

 case 2:
 ...
 break;

 default:
 ...
}

Best Solution

A compiler will sometimes turn a switch into a jump-table, if the entries are contiguous (or nearly so). Or it could theoretically use a binary search to find the case instead of a linear series of tests, which would be faster if you had a large number of cases.

On the other hand, there's nothing stopping the compiler from doing the same optimisations on the same code converted into if/else.

So on a good compiler, switch can be faster in some cases. On a very good compiler, they'd be the same.

Related Solutions

Python – Replacements for switch statement in Python

The original answer below was written in 2008. Since then, Python 3.10 (2021) introduced the match-case statement which provides a first-class implementation of a "switch" for Python. For example:

def f(x):
    match x:
        case 'a':
            return 1
        case 'b':
            return 2
        case _:        
            return 0   # 0 is the default case if x is not found

The match-case statement is considerably more powerful than this simple example.

You could use a dictionary:

def f(x):
    return {
        'a': 1,
        'b': 2,
    }[x]

C++ – Why can’t variables be declared in a switch statement

Case statements are only labels. This means the compiler will interpret this as a jump directly to the label. In C++, the problem here is one of scope. Your curly brackets define the scope as everything inside the switch statement. This means that you are left with a scope where a jump will be performed further into the code skipping the initialization.

The correct way to handle this is to define a scope specific to that case statement and define your variable within it:

switch (val)
{   
case VAL:  
{
  // This will work
  int newVal = 42;  
  break;
}
case ANOTHER_VAL:  
...
break;
}

Best Solution

Related Solutions

Python – Replacements for switch statement in Python

C++ – Why can’t variables be declared in a switch statement

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