default branch placement in switch

[Brian Goetz]

Yeah, this has to change.  In existing switches, there are no case 
labels other than default, so order is irrelevant.  But now that 
patterns have overlapping match-sets, default should be considered to 
dominate other cases, so it should go last.

Compatibility-wise, we have two choices for how to get there; carve out 
a permanent exception for switches where all cases are type-restating 
constant patterns, or plan to eventually get to a place where default 
always comes last, even for "int" switches. If we want to get to the 
latter, we should start warning on this construct now.



On 11/3/2017 5:10 PM, Tagir Valeev wrote:
> Hello!
>
> Currently the default branch can be placed in any place inside the
> switch operator, e.g. like this:
>
> switch(i) {
> case 1: System.out.println("one");break;
> default: System.out.println("other");break;
> case 2: System.out.println("two");break;
> }
>
> In this case behavior does not change on the order of case blocks.
> However in pattern matching the order of cases usually matters: if
> some pattern matches, this means that the subsequent patterns will not
> be checked. Does this mean that with pattern matching the default
> branch makes all the subsequent case blocks unreachable? Or default
> can still be located anywhere and is checked only after any other
> pattern?
>
> With best regards,
> Tagir Valeev