best way to switch on a string in C

Question

I just wonder how can I switch on the string "B1" ? Don't ask why this string :-)

Answer 1

If you mean, how to write something similar to this:

switch (string) {
  case "B1": 
    // do something
    break;
  /* more case "xxx" parts */
}

Then the canonical solution in C is to use an if-else ladder:

if (strcmp(string, "B1") == 0) 
{
  // do something
} 
else if (strcmp(string "xxx") == 0)
{
  // do something else
}
/* more else if clauses */
else /* default: */
{
}

Answer 2

Hi Niklas

To add to Phimueme's answer above, if your string is always two characters, then you can build a 16-bit int out of the two 8-bit characters - and switch on that (to avoid nested switch/case statements).

Mike

Answer 3

If you have many cases and do not want to write a ton of strcmp() calls, you could do something like:

switch(my_hash_function(the_string)) {
    case HASH_B1: ...
    /* ...etc... */
}

You just have to make sure your hash function has no collisions inside the set of possible values for the string.

Answer 4

I think the best way to do this is separate the 'recognition' from the functionality:

struct stringcase { char* string; void (*func)(void); };

void funcB1();
void funcAzA();

stringcase cases [] = 
{ { "B1", funcB1 }
, { "AzA", funcAzA }
};

void myswitch( char* token ) {
  for( stringcases* pCase = cases
     ; pCase != cases + sizeof( cases ) / sizeof( cases[0] )
     ; pCase++ )
  {
    if( 0 == strcmp( pCase->string, token ) ) {
       (*pCase->func)();
       break;
    }
  }

}

Answer 5

There is no way to do this in C. There are a lot of different approaches. Typically the simplest is to define a set of constants that represent your strings and do a look up by string on to get the constant:

#define BADKEY -1
#define A1 1
#define A2 2
#define B1 3
#define B2 4

typedef struct { char *key; int val; } t_symstruct;

static t_symstruct lookuptable[] = {
    { "A1", A1 }, { "A2", A2 }, { "B1", B1 }, { "B2", B2 }
};

#define NKEYS (sizeof(lookuptable)/sizeof(t_symstruct))

int keyfromstring(char *key)
{
    int i;
    for (i=0; i < NKEYS; i++) {
        t_symstruct *sym = lookuptable + i;
        if (strcmp(sym->key, key) == 0)
            return sym->val;
    }
    return BADKEY;
}

/* ... */
switch (keyfromstring(somestring)) {
case A1: /* ... */ break;
case A2: /* ... */ break;
case B1: /* ... */ break;
case B2: /* ... */ break;
case BADKEY: /* handle failed lookup */
}

There are, of course, more efficient ways to do this. If you keep your keys sorted, you can use a binary search. You could use a hashtable too. These things change your performance at the expense of maintenance.

Answer 6

Assuming little endianness and sizeof(char) == 1, you could do that (something like this was suggested by MikeBrom).

char* txt = "B1";
int tst = *(int*)txt;
if ((tst & 0x00FFFFFF) == '1B')
    printf("B1!\n");

It could be generalized for BE case.

Answer 7

This is how you do it. No, not really.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <assert.h>
#include <arpa/inet.h>

main (void)
{
    uint32_t s[0x40]; 
    assert((unsigned char)1 == (unsigned char)(257));
    memset(s, 0, sizeof(s));
    fgets((char*)s, sizeof(s), stdin);

    switch (ntohl(s[0])) {
        case 'open':
        case 'read':
        case 'seek':
            puts("ok");
            break;
        case 'rm\n\0':
            puts("not authorized");
            break;
        default:
            puts("unrecognized command");  
    }
    return 0;
}