Is there any significant difference between using if/else and switch-case in C#?

by

SWITCH statement only produces same assembly as IFs in debug or compatibility mode. In release, it will be compiled into jump table (through MSIL ‘switch’ statement)- which is O(1).

C# (unlike many other languages) also allows to switch on string constants – and this works a bit differently. It’s obviously not practical to build jump tables for strings of arbitrary lengths, so most often such switch will be compiled into stack of IFs.

But if number of conditions is big enough to cover overheads, C# compiler will create a HashTable object, populate it with string constants and make a lookup on that table followed by jump. Hashtable lookup is not strictly O(1) and has noticeable constant costs, but if number of case labels is large, it will be significantly faster than comparing to each string constant in IFs.

To sum it up, if number of conditions is more than 5 or so, prefer SWITCH over IF, otherwise use whatever looks better.

More Related Contents:

  1. Why switch for enum accepts implicit conversion to 0 but no for any other integer?
  2. Using Case/Switch and GetType to determine the object [duplicate]
  3. Are .Net switch statements hashed or indexed?
  4. How to switch between “possible” type of an object? [duplicate]
  5. Switch case on type c# [duplicate]
  6. Encrypt and decrypt a string in C#? [closed]
  7. .NET String.Format() to add commas in thousands place for a number
  8. How can I run an EXE file from my C# code?
  9. Making a cURL call in C#
  10. Server Client send/receive simple text
  11. Replace multiple characters in a C# string
  12. .NET code to send ZPL to Zebra printers
  13. Why is Array.Length an int, and not an uint [duplicate]
  14. Fast and compact object serialization in .NET
  15. Get individual query parameters from Uri [duplicate]
  16. How do I get the Local Network IP address of a computer programmatically?
  17. C# ListView Column Width Auto
  18. How to determine if an event is already subscribed
  19. How to set attributes values using reflection
  20. How to highlight wrapped text in a control using the graphics?
  21. winforms html editor [closed]
  22. How to convert HTML to XHTML? [closed]
  23. Key Events: ProcessCmdKey
  24. Entity framework raw SQL Query
  25. Download file with WebClient or HttpClient?
  26. XmlSerializer Performance Issue when Specifying XmlRootAttribute
  27. ComboBox AutoComplete on SubString
  28. XmlSerializer property converter
  29. Limit only one session per user in ASP.NET
  30. How to receive event when user changes system’s culture

Leave a Comment