default as first option in switch statement?

Question

I\'ve tested this and it works fine, but it looks... weird... to me. Should I be concerned that this is nonstandard form which will be dropped in a future version of PHP, or

Answer 1

In case anybody find this page through google as I did:

I was wondering the same thing as Josh - so... One thing is standards, which I think we should all try harder to adhere too, but another thing is hacking (in the: exploit-every-possibility kinda way).

While it's ugly/weird/not normal - it IS possible and IMHO could be useful in some rare cases...

Consider the following:

$color = "greenish";
//$color = "green";

switch($color) {
    default:
        echo "no colors were selected so the color is: ";
    case "red":
        echo "red
\n";
        break;
    case "blue":
        echo "blue
\n";
        break;
    case "green":
        echo "green
\n";
        break;
}

If $color = "greenish"; the code will print

no colors were selected so the color is red

while if $color = "green"; or any other defined cases, it will just print the color.

It know it not the best example, but you get the point ;) Hope it helps somebody.