Refactoring switch cases

I want to show you how to apply a simple refactoring trick to a common pattern, the "switch case" statement.

Please take a look at the following program (a console app):

class Program
    {
        private static string options = null;
        private static readonly Type sportsEnumType = typeof(SportNews.Sports);
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            SportNews news = new SportNews();
            while (true)
            {
                Console.WriteLine();
                DisplayOptions();
                string key = Console.ReadKey().KeyChar.ToString();
                Console.WriteLine();
                try
                {
                    SportNews.Sports sport = (SportNews.Sports)(Enum.Parse(
                        sportsEnumType, key));
                    news.DisplayNews(sport);
                }
                catch(Exception ex)
                {
                    Console.WriteLine(ex);
                    Console.ReadLine();
                    return;
                } 
            }
        }
        private static void DisplayOptions()
        {

            if (options == null)
            {
                StringBuilder optionsBuilder = new StringBuilder();
                FieldInfo[] enumFields = sportsEnumType.UnderlyingSystemType.GetFields(
                    BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Static);
                foreach (FieldInfo enumField in enumFields)
                {
                    object enumValue = enumField.GetRawConstantValue();
                    SportNews.Sports sport = (SportNews.Sports)(enumValue);
                    optionsBuilder.AppendFormat("To display the news for {0} press {1}\n",
                        sport, enumValue);
                }
                options = optionsBuilder.ToString();
            }
            Console.WriteLine(options);
        }
    }

    public class SportNews
    {
        public enum Sports
        {
            Soccer = 0,
            BasketBall = 1,
            Rugby = 2,
            VolleyBall = 3
        }
        public void DisplayNews(Sports sport)
        {
            switch (sport)
            {
                case Sports.Soccer:
                    DisplayNewsForSoccer();
                    break;
                case Sports.BasketBall:
                    DisplayNewsForBasketBall();
                    break;
                case Sports.Rugby:
                    DisplayNewsForRugby();
                    break;
                case Sports.VolleyBall:
                    DisplayNewsForVolleyBall();
                    break;
                default:
                    throw new NotImplementedException(string.Format(
                         "The method for the sport {0} is not implemented", sport));
            }
        }
 
        private void DisplayNewsForSoccer()
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Displaying News for Soccer");
            // Real implementation below
            // Do something
        }
        private void DisplayNewsForBasketBall()
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Displaying News for BasketBall");
            // Real implementation below
            // Do something
        }
 
        private void DisplayNewsForRugby()
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Displaying News for Rugby");
            // Real implementation below
            // Do something
        }
 
        private void DisplayNewsForVolleyBall()
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Displaying News for VolleyBall");
            // Real implementation below
            // Do something
        }
     }

What does this do? Well, simply ask the user to press a given key to execute a determined action.

The running program looks like this:

Very simple, isn't?

This is fine for the number of alternatives that we are going to handle, but, what about if you add more items (+10) to the enum, you would need to add more cases to the switch statement, and so on. This is a very error prone process and also a maintenance nightmare.

What to do then? Well, the solution is very simple, you would need to change the switch statement by a lookup table, a Dictionary object is a good candidate to do this.

SHOW ME THE CODE!!. Here it is:

First let's create our Dictionary instance in the SportNews class constructor:

private Dictionary<Sports, Action> lookupTable;
 public SportNews()
 {
     lookupTable = new Dictionary<Sports, Action>()
     {
         { Sports.Soccer, DisplayNewsForSoccer },
         { Sports.BasketBall, DisplayNewsForBasketBall },
         { Sports.Rugby, DisplayNewsForRugby },
         { Sports.VolleyBall, DisplayNewsForVolleyBall }
     };
 }

Now let's change the DisplayNews method to get rid of the switch statement, it will end up as:

public void DisplayNews(Sports sport)
{
    Action displayMethod;
    if (lookupTable.TryGetValue(sport, out displayMethod))
    {
        displayMethod.Invoke();
    }
    else
    {
        throw new NotImplementedException(string.Format(
           "The method for the sport {0} is not implemented", sport));
    }
}

Isn't this more simple and clean?

Obviously, this code could be refactored even more, but for the purpose of the article, I think it is fine.

The final working demo can be found here.

Shameless plug: You can check this article on my blog here.