Why can't I have a variable in switch-case statement? [duplicate]

Answer 1

Since other answers have covered why you are getting an error, here is a way to move in one of the four directions in response to a key press: use lookup tables instead of the conditionals/switches.

Setup portion:

std::map > moves;
moves[up_key] = make_pair(0, -1);
moves[down_key] = make_pair(0, 1);
moves[left_key] = make_pair(-1, 0);
moves[right_key] = make_pair(1, 0);

The function:

bool Character::keyPress(char c) {
    if (moves.count(c)) {
        pair dir = moves[c];
        move(dir.first, dir.second);
        return true;
    } else {
        return false;
    }
}