C switch case using char[2]

February 14, 2022

I’m trying to use switch case with char[2] in C, but it only supports integers.

int main() {
        char c[2] = "h";
        switch (c) {
                case "h":
                        printf("done!");
        }
        return 1;
}

For better understanding, what I’m trying to do is:

if "h" in ")($+#&@+)#"

Basically I want to make a condition that matches a character with a group of characters, but efficiently, the first thing that came to mind is to use switch case but it only supports int. But when I use (int)c which is recommended in other stackoverflow answers, it doesn’t return the ascii value.

>Solution :

You can’t compare arrays of characters (strings) using a switch statement directly, because switch statements only work with fundamental types; not arrays of fundamental types.

The reason using (int)c isn’t returning the ASCII value is because you’re casting char[]->int instead of char->int.

You can try looping through the array and comparing each character with a switch statement instead:

char c[2] = "h";
bool found = false;
for (int i = 0; !found && i < 2; ++i) {
    switch (c[i]) {
    case 'h':
        found = true;
        printf("Done!");
        break;
    }
}