switch statement having only one case

Question

I only have one case in switch statement

switch ($coreName) {
    case 'stock':
        $result['website'] = ($result['website']) ? $websiteStatus[$result['website']] : "";
    break;
}

My question is this a good practice or shall I use an if statement for this? Any performance differences or anything?

Answer 1

Use if else Only when :

1. you have only 2 or more conditions OR You have multiple conditions in single if else.

And use switch when

1. You have to compare `ONE` variable value against multiple.

In your case if else is better

Answer 2

Nothing speaks against this from a technical point of view.

So the question to answer is: why did you implement a switch statement instead of an if conditional?

I'd say the default should be an "normal" if condition, unless special reasons point to a switch instead. The two primary reasons might be:

• extensibility (for later additions)
• readability (for other coders)

Especially the first case should be considered here. If it might become necessary to extend the handling, then certainly using a switch right away is a good practice.

Answer 3

If you go to phpBench.com and scroll down to see the results between if and case, you can see that using an if statement is slightly faster, but the results aren't too different. (Screenshot below)

You may as well use an if as it is easier to read, less code and is still faster (even by only a tiny amount).

if($corename === "stock") {
  $result['website'] = ($result['website']) ? $websiteStatus[$result['website']] : "";
}

case should only be used when you compare multiple values rather than just one. This is the same as using elseif. Using if is the most suited for this specifically.

Answer 4

Why not simply do a simple if, like this :

if($coreName == 'stock')
    {
        $result['website'] = ($result['website']) ? $websiteStatus[$result['website']] : "";
    }

Hope this helps.