what can be passed to case statement?

[adam Lui]

sorry if this is such a stupid question, but i am really confused.

[Burkhard Hassel]

Howdy,

because the switch statement takes only ints (or lower) and enums,
this is true also for the case statement. Additionally the case statement has to be a compile time constant, e.g. a int literal. And enum values are per se compile time constants:

class Main {
 
public static void main(String[] args) {
short s = -4515;
final [B]int[/B] x = 500;
switch (s) {
case 0:
System.out.println(0);
break;
case x:
System.out.println("x");
break;
default:
System.out.println("default");
}
System.out.println("----------------------");
Planet p = Planet.MERCURY;
switch (p) {
case EARTH:
System.out.println("life");
break;
default:
System.out.println("no life");
}
}
 
enum Planet {
MERCURY, VENUS, EARTH, MARS, JUPITER, SATURN,
URANUS, NEPTUNE, PLUTO, MICKEY, GOOFY;
}
}

The last three are not really planets.
The x as an int is allowed, because it is a compile time constant small enough to fit in a short.

By the way, as types smaller as ints are allowed, the switch case thing also works with chars (but not with Character...).

Yours,
Bu.