An amusing piece of code

[David Herron, NPR Lover]

In article <1370 at ism780c.UUCP> tim at ism780c.UUCP (Tim Smith) writes:
>Here is an amusing piece of code that someone who wants to remain
>annonymous invented.

Good idea :-).

> ...
>        switch ( thing ) {
>case A:         A-code; break;
>case B:         B-code; if ( 0 ) {
>case C:         C-code; if ( 0 ) {
>case D:         D-code; }}
>                BCD-common-code; break;
>case E:         E-code;
>        }
>
>Noone here has been able to come up with a reasonable style for this.  The
>example above is not to bad, but if B-code, C-code, etc, are complicated,
>then it starts to get ugly.

I don't like this either... it's not very straightforward, but ALSO,
there's a potential problem I think.  "case D:" exits TWO levels
of context and never entered ANY, case C: exits TWO but only entered ONE.
(Is this ever a problem?  I can see that it "might" be, but I'm also
sure that the PCC will run it fine.)

What about:

	switch(thing) {
	case A:	A-code; break;
	case B: B-code; goto BCD-common;
	case C: C-code; goto BCD-common;
	case D: D-code;
	BCD-common: BCD-code; break;
	case E: E-code;
	}

I know, EVIL NASTY goto statements.  But this is a limited local use
of goto's and surely that should be allowable except for the most
rabid of structurists.  Especially if there is commentation pointing
the reader toward BCD-common:.
-- 
David Herron,  cbosgd!ukma!david, david at UKMA.BITNET, david at uky.csnet