Switch-Case Construct in PHP

PHP has a special switch-case construct, which is used to select one value from a range of values. Study its syntax:

php<?php
  switch (variable) {
    case 'variant 1':
      /*
        code that will execute if
        the variable has value1
      */
    break;
    case 'variant 2':
      /*
        code that will execute if
        the variable has value2
      */
    break;
    case 'variant 3':
      /*
        code that will execute if
        the variable has value3
      */
    break;
    default:
      /*
        code that will execute if
        it doesn't match any value
      */
    break;
  }
?>

As you can see, switch-case is an alternative to multiple elseif statements. Let's look at an example. Suppose we have the following code:

php<?php
  $num = 1;
  
  if ($num === 1) {
    echo 'variant 1';
  } elseif ($num === 2) {
    echo 'variant 2';
  } elseif ($num === 3) {
    echo 'variant 3';
  } else {
    echo 'variant not supported';
  }
?>

Let's rewrite this code using the switch-case construct:

php<?php
  $num = 1;
  
  switch ($num) {
    case 1:
      echo 'variant 1';
    break;
    case 2:
      echo 'variant 2';
    break;
    case 3:
      echo 'variant 3';
    break;
    default:
      echo 'variant not supported';
    break;
  }
?>