Dillon Hafer

In Apple’s Swift language switch statements must be what apple calls “exhaustive”. I’ve felt the term to be very literal. Literally exhaustive?

Example that does not work:

let count = 42

switch count {
case 1:
  print(1)
case 7:
  print(7)
}

The above statement does not work because it’s missing a default case. Why? What if I don’t want to do anything else? Why do I need to write something that won’t be used? Don’t worry, there is an amazing and less “exhaustive” way to handle these situations; simply default: ()

Correct example:

let count = 42

switch count {
case 1:
  print(1)
case 7:
  print(7)
default: ()
}