Understanding switch and case expressions

a = 'hi';
switch a
case {'hi','hello'}
disp('hi, hello')
case 'hi'
disp('hi')
end

When executing this code, the result is hi, hello. This does not make sense to me. If a = 'hi', then according to the case 'hi' shouldn't the result just be hi. Why is it hi, hello?

Answer 1

[Ryan Livingston]

The cases are checked in order. Since a = 'hi' and 'hi' is in the first case, that one is chosen.

Using a cell array:

 case {'hi', 'hello'}
 disp('hi, hello');

means "pick this case if "a" is either 'hi' or 'hello'. It is somewhat equivalent to saying:

 if strcmp(a,'hi') || strcmp(a,'hello')
 disp('hi, hello');

[Shashank Prasanna]

Joe this behavior is explained in the doc:

http://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/switch.html