Why do we need break after case statements?

Question

Why doesn\'t the compiler automatically put break statements after each code block in the switch? Is it for historical reasons? When would you want multiple code blocks to e

Answer 1

It is an old question but actually I ran into using the case without break statement today. Not using break is actually very useful when you need to combine different functions in sequence.

e.g. using http response codes to authenticate user with time token

server response code 401 - token is outdated -> regenerate token and log user in.
server response code 200 - token is OK -> log user in.

in case statements:

case 404:
case 500:
        {
            Log.v("Server responses","Unable to respond due to server error");
            break;
        }
        case 401:
        {
             //regenerate token
        }
        case 200:
        {
            // log in user
            break;
        }

Using this you do not need to call log in user function for 401 response because when the token is regenerated, the runtime jumps into the case 200.