Select Case Always

[Frank Rogers]

I ran into something I didn't know (not an unusual occurrence by a long shot, but anyway...) I found that you can put code between the SELECT and the first CASE and it is always executed. I couldn't find anything in the docs about it. I just thought it was interesting. Ver 10.04.

  LOCAL X AS LONG
  X = 2

  SELECT CASE X
  ? "Always"
  CASE = 1: ? "1"
  CASE = 2: ? "2"
  CASE = 3: ? "3"
  END SELECT

[Rodney Hicks]

This came up years ago and Bob Zale's reaction to it was "Don't do it!"

[Frank Rogers]

..."Don't do it!"

For me it was a good thing. I used that line for debug information. It displayed what the select was before the cases were executed.

Down side...Any statements that change X in my example were misleading because the SELECT already made it's decision which CASE to execute.

[Rodney Hicks]

I don't recall any bad effects doing that, just the word from above.

[Frank Rogers]

This could be very confusing changing the value of the SELECT test before the CASE executes

  LOCAL X AS LONG
  X = 2

  SELECT CASE X

  X = 3

  CASE = 1: ? "1"
  CASE = 2: ? "2"
  CASE = 3: ? "3"
  END SELECT

2 still executes after X was changed to 3.

[Rodney Hicks]

But the value of x is 3 after the END SELECT, so yes, one could confuse one's self.
To further confuse one's self put : x+=x after "2".