Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!apple!sun-barr!newstop!sun!bitbug
From: bitbug@lonewolf.sun.com (James Buster)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: problems/risks due to programming language
Message-ID: <BITBUG.90Feb22221658@lonewolf.sun.com>
Date: 23 Feb 90 06:16:58 GMT
References: <1597@awdprime.UUCP> <8133@hubcap.clemson.edu>
Sender: news@sun.Eng.Sun.COM
Organization: Sun Microsystems Federal, Inc.
Lines: 41
In-reply-to: billwolf%hazel.cs.clemson.edu@hubcap.clemson.edu's message of 23 Feb 90 02:24:08 GMT

In article <8133@hubcap.clemson.edu> billwolf%hazel.cs.clemson.edu@hubcap.clemson.edu (William Thomas Wolfe, 2847 ) writes:
> C's switch statement is badly designed, so badly designed that it is 
> common practice to use break statements by the dozen in order to get 
> it to behave reasonably.  A more sensible design would give the switch 
> the semantics of the Ada case statement, thereby saving countless lines 
> of code through the elimination of all those "break" statements. 
>
> Bill Wolfe, wtwolfe@hubcap.clemson.edu

I claim that the possibly erroneous replication of code required by the Ada
case statement, e.g.

-- in approximate Ada style
switch foo is
    case 5 =>
	statement1;
	statement2;
	statement3;
    case 7 =>
	statement1;
	statement2;
	statement3;
end

as compared too C's

switch (foo)
{
    case 5:
    case 7:
	statement1;
	statement2;
	statement3;
}

is well worth remembering to put in break statements.
--
---------------------------------------------------------------------
        James Buster		(Domain) bitbug@lonewolf.ebay.sun.com
  Mad Hacker Extraordinaire	(UUCP)   ...!sun.com!lonewolf!bitbug
---------------------------------------------------------------------