Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="thomaslackner" data-source="post: 212744" data-attributes="member: 35107">While on the subject of switch statements, another cool thing to try out is using an ARRAY to act as a switch statement or a big pile of IF statements. That sounds crazy, but imagine this:&nbsp;&nbsp;[PHP]switch ($color_number) {case 1:&nbsp; return 'red';&nbsp; break;case 2:&nbsp; return 'green';&nbsp; break;case 3:&nbsp; return 'blue';&nbsp; break;}&nbsp;&nbsp; [/PHP]&nbsp;It's pretty common to use switch statements like this, to map one value to another. But there's actually an easier (and clearer) way:&nbsp;[PHP]$color_numbers_to_names = array(&nbsp; 1 =&gt; 'red',&nbsp; 2 =&gt; 'green',&nbsp; 3 =&gt; 'blue');return $color_numbers_to_names[$color_number];[/PHP]&nbsp;This is great because it makes you think about what *data* your program is working with, not just what the logic is. Often times in large programs, the data contains most of the logic, rather than the code itself (in this example, imagine if you had to make an admin application to allow people to change color number assignments, for example).</blockquote>

[QUOTE="thomaslackner, post: 212744, member: 35107"] While on the subject of switch statements, another cool thing to try out is using an ARRAY to act as a switch statement or a big pile of IF statements. That sounds crazy, but imagine this: [PHP]switch ($color_number) { case 1: return 'red'; break; case 2: return 'green'; break; case 3: return 'blue'; break; } [/PHP] It's pretty common to use switch statements like this, to map one value to another. But there's actually an easier (and clearer) way: [PHP]$color_numbers_to_names = array( 1 => 'red', 2 => 'green', 3 => 'blue'); return $color_numbers_to_names[$color_number]; [/PHP] This is great because it makes you think about what *data* your program is working with, not just what the logic is. Often times in large programs, the data contains most of the logic, rather than the code itself (in this example, imagine if you had to make an admin application to allow people to change color number assignments, for example). [/QUOTE]

Verification

Reply to thread

Connect with us

Newest members