Using switch and enumerations as substitute for named methods
- by MatthewMartin
This pattern pops up a lot. It looks like a very verbose way to move what would otherwise be separate named methods into a single method and then distinguished by a parameter.
Is there any good reason to have this pattern over just having two methods Method1() and Method2() ? The real kicker is that this pattern tends to be invoked only with constants at runtime-- i.e. the arguments are all known before compiling is done.
public enum Commands
{
Method1,
Method2
}
public void ClientCode()
{
//Always invoked with constants! Never user input.
RunCommands(Commands.Method1);
RunCommands(Commands.Method2);
}
public void RunCommands(Commands currentCommand)
{
switch (currentCommand)
{
case Commands.Method1:
// Stuff happens
break;
case Commands.Method2:
// Other stuff happens
break;
default:
throw new ArgumentOutOfRangeException("currentCommand");
}
}
