Imagine if every if statement required you to write an else clause, even if it was empty. The idea would be, that you have to affirmatively attest that you didn't want to have a special case for when it didn't match the condition.

How fast do you think that everyone would run screaming for the exits?

But we have such a thing, in the default: case requirement.

In my code, it happens quite a bit that I throw an exception in the default case, or return something, but there's still a lot of default: break; code in there.

But consider a few things here:

1. I have final switch at my disposal whenever I need it, which allows me to avoid default: and is really meant for "I want to make sure I handle everything"
2. If you forget to return something, or throw an exception, the compiler will still let you know (i.e. some code paths don't return a value). This counts for the majority of places where I have a default case that's not just break;.
3. I know in my experience (yours may vary) that when I forget to include a default, it's usually because I forgot to include default: break;. So the rule hasn't really helped me avoid bad code.
4. switch is already bloated enough with the requirement for break or goto between cases.

If we wanted to relax this requirement it's actually an easy change -- no currently-compiling code will break.

Why not? How much does this rule help you, vs. annoy you?

-Steve

On Friday, 31 March 2023 at 15:20:41 UTC, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:

Indeed, there are many rules like this one that just doesn't make sense, and just makes you type more, removing clarity from your own code

Also requiring "break" is annoying, all modern languages moved away from this noisy syntax and went the pattern matching and enum as expression route, and it feels much better to use

D stuck with C's enums and C's switch model

On Friday, 31 March 2023 at 15:20:41 UTC, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:

I would prefer to make the change, but it's not a major point for me, so I wouldn't fight too hard either way. Offsetting some of this is that I find the code more readable this way.

On 3/31/23 1:25 PM, Ali Çehreli wrote:

You can still write default: break; if you want.

I honestly think it's just habit. And I think that habit has to do somewhat with problems that are mostly solved (from C and C++).

-Steve

On 3/31/23 12:28 PM, Richard (Rikki) Andrew Cattermole wrote:

Do you feel the same about if statements without else? Why is it different?

-Steve

On Friday, 31 March 2023 at 18:30:27 UTC, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:

If statements are rather binary, and it is easy to understand the two paths.

Switches often have more than 2 cases, and its easier to forget one.

Also consider refactoring. With switches I might add or rename or replace one of the values, which doesn't happen with if statements.

On Friday, 31 March 2023 at 15:20:41 UTC, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:

Annoys.