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iOS Objective-C Basics Introduction to Operators and Conditionals Review Switches and Enums

Brennan Robinson
Brennan Robinson
790 Points
Posted by Brennan Robinson
Brennan Robinson
790 Points

After testing the question that begins "NSString *primaryLanguage;" question, the current correct answer is wrong

I tested this in Xcode:

NSString *primaryLanguage;

enum country {
    USA = 0,
    UK = 1,
    Germany = 2,
    Thailand = 3,
};

int country = UK;

switch (country) {

    case USA:
        primaryLanguage = @"American English";
        NSLog(@"The primary language is American English.");
        break;

    case UK:
        primaryLanguage = @"English";
        NSLog(@"The primary language is British English");
        break;

    case Germany:
        primaryLanguage = @"German";
        NSLog(@"The primary language is German.");
        break;

    case Thailand:
        primaryLanguage = @"Thai";
        NSLog(@"The primary language is Thai.");
        break;

    default:
        primaryLanguage = @"Pig Latin";
        NSLog(@"The primary language is Pig Latin");
        break;

}

The result is British English in my NSLog. The difference: I set "country" as an int, which in the prior code, it was not even declared as a variable, and was used in the switch. That was incorrect. So with this modification, the result is switch UK, not switch Germany.

2 Answers

Preston Skaggs
Preston Skaggs
11,818 Points

First of all your method is wrong. You've defined country as an enum and then defined it as an int. Next, you have not replicated what was being defined in the question. The question tells you to check the syntax and is hinting at the fact that there are missing break statements in the first two case statements. That is why the answer is not "English".

Brennan Robinson
Brennan Robinson
790 Points
Brennan Robinson
Brennan Robinson
790 Points

Thanks for the clarification, because I definitely overlooked that.

Preston Skaggs
Preston Skaggs
11,818 Points

You're welcome. I do that type of stuff all the time. It helps to have another set of eyes take a look.

Brennan Robinson
Brennan Robinson
790 Points
Brennan Robinson
Brennan Robinson
790 Points

One thing though, it is not "wrong" to define a variable called country to store this data, the only mistake would be to name it the same name as the enum. So I should have renamed it to targetCountry, or some more precise name. Clarity in the code, rather than assigning the enum to the target value is a better coding practice. (If you don't believe me, check out Apple's docs, MSDN (for C language specifications), and stack overflow.

Preston Skaggs
Preston Skaggs
11,818 Points
Preston Skaggs
Preston Skaggs
11,818 Points

What is wrong is using the same variable name in the same scope for two different definitions. So yes your method was wrong because of that. I agree that it is not wrong to use a variable to hold a value.