I don’t care for switch statements in C#. They’re a poor substitution for pattern matching. They require a compile time constant like a string, an enum, or an integral. Because of that restriction, they are not even a good replacement for giant if-else constructs, which was their intended purpose. On top of all of that, their syntax is ugly and error-prone. Ever left out a break; and saw some unintended consequences due to the fall through?
In general, I regard switch statements a code smell. Usually, some factoring could remove the need for them completely. However, there are times when you just have to make due with switch statements, like you’re on a tight deadline so refactoring is out the question, or maybe there just isn’t a good way to refactor it out of existence. If you’re stuck with a switch statement, there may be a better solution. Let me show you how to turn ugly switch statements into something more manageable.
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