Little more than a structured goto with a nicer getout, every C programmer knows (and many love) the switch statement. Even if you don't love it, there are obvious uses that produce cleaner code than strings of else-ifs and help prevent many simple kinds of errors.


Take for instance the following code, for which Gulliver writes in asking, "how many times do you have to check a condition?"


void ReplaceCommas (char *buffer)
    {
    int i,j;
    j=strlen(buffer);
    for (i=0; i < j; i++)
        {
        if (buffer[i]==',')
            {
            if (buffer[i]==',') buffer[i]='.';
            }
        if (buffer[i]==',')
            {
            if (buffer[i]=='"') buffer[i]='\'';
            }
        }
    return;
    }

Still, it's not all sunshine and lollipops. Call it "Pallas' Law," but I am convinced that given any language construct, for every use there is an equal and opposite abuse. Christian sends along the following specimen.

BOOL function(zControl **key,zControl **focus,BOOL bf) {
  zWindowDlistIter    trav(&this->zWindow::kidslist());
  zWindow    * child;
  zControl    * f;

assEvH()->SetMenuItems(0, -M_EXECUTE, 0);

  while ( ( child = trav() ) != NULL )
  {
    if ( ( f = dynamic_cast<zControl *>(child) ) != 0 )
    {
      int      DomId = f->zChildWin::ctrlId();
      switch ( DomId )
      {
        default:
               break;
      }
    }
  }
  return(TRUE);
}

The first corollary to the above statement is, of course, that these abuses are the cornerstone of a wide range of liver conditions.

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