The switch statement
TypeScript developers are familiar with the switch
statement. By
contrast, pattern matching is a conditional
expression that destructures a value of almost any type to control the
flow of execution. Switches only work on simple types, like int
,
nat
, bool
, string
etc., which makes them akin to enumerated
types. They are most useful when they avoid writing nested
conditional statements.
function hello (day: nat) : string {
let greeting = "Hello";
switch (day) {
case 1n: greeting += " Monday!"; break;
case 2n: greeting += " Tuesday!"; break;
case 3n: greeting += " Wednesday!"; break;
case 4n: greeting += " Thursday!"; break;
case 5n: greeting += " Friday!"; break;
case 6n: greeting += " Saturday!"; break;
case 7n: greeting += " Sunday!"; break;
default: greeting += "!"; break;
};
return greeting;
}
Each case is introduced by the keyword case
, except the default
case, which must be last and applies when all the previous cases have
failed to match.