Question

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Switch statement fallthrough in C#?

The following code is illegal in C# because control cannot fall through from one case label to another. However, this behaviour is perfectly legal in C++. So, how would you go about coding the same behaviour in C#?

enum TotalWords
{
   One = 1,
   Two,
   Three,
   Four
}

public String SomeMethod(TotalWords totalWords)
{     
     String phrase = "";

     switch (totalWords)
     {
        case TotalWords.Four:
             phrase = "Fox" + phrase;
        case TotalWords.Three:
             phrase = "Brown" + phrase;
        case TotalWords.Two:
             phrase = "Quick" + phrase;
        case TotalWords.One:
             phrase = "The" + phrase;
             break;

        default:
             break;
     }

     return phrase;
}

Answer 1

Eric Lippert, who works on the language, talks about it here:
http://ericlippert.com/2009/08/13/four-switch-oddities/

Short version: the easiest fix is to use a goto:

switch (totalWords)
 {
    case TotalWords.Four:
         phrase = "Fox" + phrase;
         goto case TotalWords.Three;
    case TotalWords.Three:
         phrase = "Brown" + phrase;
         goto case TotalWords.Two;
    case TotalWords.Two:
         phrase = "Quick" + phrase;
         goto case TotalWords.One;
    case TotalWords.One:
         phrase = "The" + phrase;
         break;

    default:
         break;
 }

I think the rationale here is that 9 times out of 10 a missing break is a bug rather than intentional. Forcing you to use break and an explicit branch helps keep you from writing bugs and makes it clear to future maintainters that the fall-through is intentional.