On 12/18/2017 4:16 PM, Kevin Bourrillion wrote:
On Mon, Dec 11, 2017 at 11:28 AM, Brian Goetz <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
I think most of my questions surround how these changes will (or
/should/) affect non-expression switches.
* Should we retcon `case A, B:` onto regular switches, with the
same semantics?
Absolutely; I thought this was already present in the JEP, but if
not, I'll clarify.
* Should we retcon `case null:` onto regular switches, with the
same semantics?
Absolutely; same comment.
There is a problem here, especially among users who learn Java in the
future and never know how `switch` used to work.
They will know that `null` is a valid thing to switch on, and when
they don't see `case null` they will assume that the `default` clause
is being executed. That's unfortunate.
Why would they assume that? What they'll learn in future Java school is
"If there's no explicit case null, switch throws NPE". Which is exactly
as it is today -- except that you can't spell "case null". In no case
will a switch without a "case null" execute the default clause on null
input.
Now whenever we want null handled the default way we're going to have
to do this:
case null:
default:
codeHere();
Right. This seems pretty clean to me -- if you want null lumped into
default, you say so, and its clear. Otherwise you get the default null
treatment.
This isn't an absolute deal-breaker, but I could use a refresher on
what the positive value of allowing `case null` is at all. The word
"null" does not appear in the current pattern matching doc.
Same answer as with floats: nested patterns and composibility.
Suppose I have a class Box<T>, which is a one-element collection, and
let's say a Box can contain null. (Nulls are reasonable, if tricky
values for domain classes.) I want to be able to say:
case Box(null): ...
which is a nested pattern that means:
case Box(\alpha) where \alpha matches null:
which brings us back to: everything is cleaner if null is a just
constant pattern that can be matched. At which point, it just seems a
little mean to have null be a pattern but *not* be able to say:
case null:
in a switch at top level. Especially because you should be allowed to
refactor:
case Box(null): A
case Box(String s): B;
case Box(Frogs fs): C;
into
case Box(var x):
switch (x) {
case null: A
case String s: B;
case Frogs fs: C;
}
if that seems beneficial.
