why is the switch case not breaking after the first if case is printed?

Question

in the below if statement if it's false it would print the else statement correctly. "No order with this number exists, please create a new order." and if it's true it prints the first statement correctly as well, but it's always followed by the else statement. Why isn't the break; terminating after the first if case is printed?

case(3):{ 
              System.out.println("");
            System.out.println("Please Enter The Order Number: ");
            int orderno = input.nextInt();
            Iterator<Order> orderIterator3 = orders.getIterator();
            Order currentorder;
            String itemRemoved = null;
            StackInterface <String> newItems = new ArrayStack<String>();
            while ( orderIterator3.hasNext()) { //iterate through the list until an order  with a matching order no is found 
                currentorder = orderIterator3.next();  
            if(currentorder.getNumber() == orderno) { //access the Items in the list by their order number 
                newItems = currentorder.getItems(); //Copy the existing items into a new stack
                if (!newItems.isEmpty())
                itemRemoved = newItems.pop();
                 System.out.println("The last item: " + itemRemoved + "\n was successfully removed from your order!"); break;
                }//End if

            }//End While 
            System.out.println("No order with this number exists, please create a new order."); break;
          }// End Case 3

It breaks the enclosing while(), and therefore fails to break the switch. — Alex Nevidomsky, Apr 18 '15 at 10:06
`System.out.println("The last item: " + itemRemoved + "\n was successfully removed from your order!"); break; ` < I do — helloworld, Apr 18 '15 at 10:07

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 18 '15 at 10:09

When you break inside the while-loop, you will break the while-loop, not the case.

There are a few different ways of making this work, but the easiest would probably be to just add a boolean value that you set to true if it should break out of the case, something like:

boolean shouldBreak = false;
while( ... ) {
  if( ... ) {
    shouldBreak = true;
    break; // break out of the while.
  }
}
if(shouldBreak) {
  break; // break out of the switch/case.
}

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 18 '15 at 10:09

0

You can not break a case from inside a while() loop. The most straightforward fix is to set a boolean to true when breaking the while, check it after the loop, and break again if true.

answered Apr 18 '15 at 10:09

Alex Nevidomsky

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why is the switch case not breaking after the first if case is printed?

2 Answers2