Arizona State University (ASU) CSE100 Principles of Programming with C++ Midterm 1 Practice Exam

The appropriate use of a switch statement in C++ is to facilitate multiple choice selections based on the value of a variable. When you implement a switch statement, it evaluates the expression provided within the parentheses and compares it against the different cases specified within the block. Each case corresponds to a possible value of the variable, allowing for different blocks of code to execute depending on the variable's value.

If a case matches the variable's value, the code associated with that case runs until a break statement is encountered or the switch block ends. This structure is particularly useful for scenarios where you need to conditionally execute different code segments based on the value of a single variable, making the code clearer and often more efficient than using multiple if-else statements.

In contrast, a switch statement is not intended for executing a single block of code, it can have more than two cases, and it is not a loop but a branching control structure.