C#.net switch statement

Question

I would like to setup a switch statement in a C#.net 2008 desktop application. I basically want to check for who has 'group' access according to the active directory. The following is the two statements I am using to obtain the active directory groups.

AppDomain.CurrentDomain.SetPrincipalPolicy(PrincipalPolicy.WindowsPrincipal);
Thread.CurrentPrincipal = new WindowsPrincipal(WindowsIdentity.GetCurrent());

Some how I would need to use Thread.CurrentPrincipal. How would you set this up in the switch statement?

Sam Hobbs · Answer

How would you do it using "if" statements? There is nothing that a switch statement can do that cannot be done using "if" statements. You can have multiple "if" statements in the format "if (a == "something") else if (a == "another")" that can be converted to a switch satement but if the "if" statements are not in that format in terms of one of the values is not always the same (such as "a" in my sample) then you cannot use a switch statement. Also note that a case label must have a constant; do you understand that? Since the switch statement is so inflexible, it is often not useful. Also, depending on how many values that there are to compare to, it might be more efficient for you and the computer to use a collection such as a Dictionary.

Vulpes · Answer

If you don't know already, you can use Thread.CurrentPrincipal to obtain three properties: Name, IsAuthenticated and AuthenticationType. See the example on MSDN ( http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.threading.thread.currentprincipal.aspx ). If you do use a switch statement (though, as Sam says, you can just as easily use multiple if statements), then you can switch on either of the two string properties. Although you won't find it in any books, switching on a bool property also works, though if/else is certainly easier to write in that case.