478: Highlights

• If you want a program to decide which of many alternative statements to evaluate, then instantiate the following pattern:

  switch (integer-producing expression) { 
    case integer constant 1: statements for integer 1 break; 
    case integer constant 2: statements for integer 2 break; 
    ... 
    default: default statements 
  } 
  

• In switch statements, you may omit the symbol default: and the default statements.
• In switch statements, the integer-producing expression can produce a value belonging to any of the integral data types, including the char data type.
• In switch statements, once embedded statement execution begins, execution continues up to the first embedded break statement or to the end of the switch statement, whichever comes first. Bugs emerge when you forget to pair case symbols with break statements.
• If you want to display information describing an error, then use cerr as the target of an output statement, rather than cout.
• If you want a program to stop, because an error has occurred, then tell C++ you intend to make use of the appropriate library and then insert an exit statement:

  #include   
  ... 
  exit (0);