Switch vs if comparison in C++ - Hands-On Comparison

Switch vs if comparison

📖 Scenario: Imagine you are building a simple program that tells the day of the week based on a number input. You want to compare two ways to do this: using switch and using if statements.

🎯 Goal: You will create a program that takes a number from 1 to 7 and prints the corresponding day name. You will first set up the input number, then create a variable to hold the day name, then use switch statement to assign the correct day name to dayName, and finally print the result.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create an integer variable called dayNumber with the value 3

Create a string variable called dayName initialized to an empty string

Use a switch statement on dayNumber to assign the correct day name to dayName

Print the value of dayName

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Programs often need to choose actions based on a value, like days of the week or menu options.

💼 Career

Understanding switch and if statements is essential for writing clear, efficient decision-making code in many software jobs.

1

Set up the day number

Create an integer variable called dayNumber and set it to 3.

C++

# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use int dayNumber = 3; to create the variable.

2

Create the day name variable

Create a string variable called dayName and initialize it to an empty string "".

C++

int dayNumber = 3;
// Your code here

Need a hint?

Use std::string dayName = ""; to create the variable.

3

Assign day name using switch

Use a switch statement on dayNumber to assign the correct day name to dayName. Use these mappings: 1 = "Monday", 2 = "Tuesday", 3 = "Wednesday", 4 = "Thursday", 5 = "Friday", 6 = "Saturday", 7 = "Sunday". Include a default case that assigns "Invalid day".

C++

int dayNumber = 3;
std::string dayName = "";
// Your code here

Need a hint?

Use switch(dayNumber) { case 1: dayName = "Monday"; break; ... default: dayName = "Invalid day"; }

4

Print the day name

Write a std::cout statement to print the value of dayName followed by a newline.

C++

int dayNumber = 3;
std::string dayName = "";
switch(dayNumber) {
    case 1:
        dayName = "Monday";
        break;
    case 2:
        dayName = "Tuesday";
        break;
    case 3:
        dayName = "Wednesday";
        break;
    case 4:
        dayName = "Thursday";
        break;
    case 5:
        dayName = "Friday";
        break;
    case 6:
        dayName = "Saturday";
        break;
    case 7:
        dayName = "Sunday";
        break;
    default:
        dayName = "Invalid day";
}
// Your code here

Need a hint?

Use std::cout << dayName << std::endl; to print the day name.