Question

I need to change the following if‘s to a switch–case while checking for a String, to improve the cyclomatic complexity.

String value = some methodx;
if ("apple".equals(value)) {
    method1;
}

if ("carrot".equals(value)) {
    method2;
}

if ("mango".equals(value)) {
    method3;
}

if ("orange".equals(value)) {
    method4;
}

But I am not sure what value I’m going to get.

Answer 1

Java (before version 7) does not support String in switch/case. But you can achieve the desired result by using an enum.

private enum Fruit {
    apple, carrot, mango, orange;
}

String value; // assume input
Fruit fruit = Fruit.valueOf(value); // surround with try/catch

switch(fruit) {
    case apple:
        method1;
        break;
    case carrot:
        method2;
        break;
    // etc...
}