Is “else if” faster than “switch() case”? [duplicate]

Answer 1

see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.reflection.emit.opcodes.switch%28VS.71%29.aspx

switch statement basically a look up table it have options which are known and if statement is like boolean type. according to me switch and if-else are same but for logic switch can help more better. while if-else helps to understand in reading also.

Answer 2

Technically, they produce the exact same result so they should be optimizable in pretty much the same way. However, there are more chances that the compiler will optimize the switch case with a jump table than the ifs.

I'm talking about the general case here. For 5 entries, the average number of tests performed for the ifs should be less than 2.5, assuming you order the conditions by frequency. Hardly a bottleneck to write home about unless in a very tight loop.