How can I assign a certain case to execute the same code as another case in a java switch statement?

Question

What I'm trying to do is allow a user to input different variations of a string(by that I mean, a user could enter either "Calculator", "Calc", "calculator", etc.), and still get the same code executed so I don't have to copy it into each case I want to do the same thing. i.e.

switch(input) {
    case "string1":
        statement 1;
        break;
    case "string2":
        statement 1;
        break;
    case "string3":
        statement 2;
        break;
    case "string4":
        statement 2;
        break;
    default:
        break;

Is there an easy way to do this, other than writing the same statement for each case?

For instance, you state, "input different variations of a string..." -- what is a "variation of a string"? — Hovercraft Full Of Eels, Jan 05 '22 at 02:57
Cases can be combined; checking out Java tutorials ot docs on switch statements might be helpful. That said, normalizing data (like lowercasing it) or a regular expression might be a better option, or explicitly limiting options, or some variation of fuzzy matching. — Dave Newton, Jan 05 '22 at 02:58
I got it, thank you for giving me the right term to search for. — Ivan G., Jan 05 '22 at 03:17
On the original, see [this correct Answer](https://stackoverflow.com/a/52238221/642706) using switch expressions in Java 14+. — Basil Bourque, Jan 05 '22 at 03:27

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 05 '22 at 03:16

A comment gave me the term I was looking for, so I searched it up and found the answer myself. I now know that I can combine cases by putting the case label with just the colons above the next case, that has the statement to be run in both cases. i.e.

switch(input) {
    case "string1":
    case "string2":
        statement1;
        break;
    case "string3":
    case "string4":
        statement2;
        break;
    default:
        break;

This gives my desired output. Thank you, Dave Newton!

How can I assign a certain case to execute the same code as another case in a java switch statement?

1 Answers1