On 16/03/2016 08:13, Christian Gollwitzer wrote:
Am 16.03.16 um 05:26 schrieb Mark Lawrence:
So you would rather write something like:-
switch (x):
case COW:
moo()
break
case DUCK:
quack()
break
default IDUNNO:
panic()
than:-
x.makeNoise()
No sane person would do that. But just because you selected the worst
possible semantics (fallthrough/break) and the worst posible use case
(simulating polymorphism) doesn't mean that switches have no use. Code
like the above was used a lot in early GUI toolkits for C - Motif and
the Windows C API, for instance, use a gigantic switch to decide upon
incoming events. Now the strange statement in the switch discussion
makes sense:
I've never said that switches have no use. As the powers to be have
decreed that they're not going into Python, and I fully agree with that
decision, I just wish people would shut up about them, but the issue
keeps cropping up.
"Typically, similar switch statements are scattered throughout a
program. If you add or remove a clause in one switch, you often have to
find and repair the others too."
That happens indeed if one were to simulate polymorphism using switch
statements, but not for other cases.
In Python, you need to go the other way round, you don't have a switch,
but you can simulate it via function tables or polymorphism.
The difference between a switch and its simulation via function pointer
tables etc. is the scope. In a true switch statement, the code blocks
access the same variables. You can't truly simulate an if statement in
Python, if it were missing:
I've no idea at all what you mean by the above.
>>> def hi():
... print "hi"
...
>>> def yu():
... print "yu"
...
>>> hi() if 1>2 else yu()
yu
>>> hi() if 2>1 else yu()
hi
This gives you, in principal, an if-then-else statement back. But you
can't do something like
if 1>2:
a=3
else:
b=2
The above appears to have crept into Python when you weren't looking.
C:\Users\Mark\Documents\MyPython>py -3
Python 3.5.1 (v3.5.1:37a07cee5969, Dec 6 2015, 01:54:25) [MSC v.1900 64
bit (AMD64)] on win32
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> if 1>2:
... a=2
... else:
... b=3
...
>>> a
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
NameError: name 'a' is not defined
>>> b
3
Same with switch. You can use a hash table etc. to simulate switches,
but only if the codeblocks are independent. Otherwise, if-elif chains
are the way to go. Command line parsing is a case where switch
statements are often used, e.g. in shell scripts.
I've seen at least six different ways of simulating switches, so those
people who want them, can have them. if-elif chains are not likely to
kill any Python programmer.
I have no interest what other languages use switch/case statements for,
as we've on the PYTHON mailing list.
Christian
--
My fellow Pythonistas, ask not what our language can do for you, ask
what you can do for our language.
Mark Lawrence
--
https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
