Joey Javas

The switch statement is used in JavaScript to evaluate cases for a variable and is used as follows:

var intTest = 1;
switch(intTest)
{
case 0:
document.write('0');
break;
case 1:
document.write('1');
break;
default:
document.write('unknown');
break;
}

The break statement exits the switch. If it is not used, subsequent cases will execute if also valid. For example, if no break was used in the case of 1 in the example above, both 1 and unknown would print.

The switch statement is preferable to multiple if statements as the tested value doesn’t have to be evaluated repeatedly.

String datatype example:

var strTest = 'a';
switch(strTest)
{
case 'a':
document.write('a found');
break;
case 'b':
document.write('b found');
break;
default:
document.write('unknown');
break;
}