Translate MATLAB Switch/Case Statements to if/elif statements in Python

Hello,

I am trying to translate some code from MATLAB to Python. This particular code is puzzling me as Python does not have or use Switch/Case statements. Reading that "the switch block tests each case until one of the case expressions is true" which reminds me of a while loop.

However, I am fairly certain that is not the case. Can somebody help me translate this and explain the conceptual differences between the if/elif statements and the switch/case statements?

Here is the code:

   if (rem(length(varargin),2)==1)
    error('Optional parameters should always go by pairs');
else
    for i=1:2:(length(varargin)-1)
        switch upper(varargin{i})
            case 'MM_ITERS'
                MMiters = varargin{i+1};
            case 'SPHERIZE'
                spherize = varargin{i+1};
            case 'MU'
                mu = varargin{i+1};
            case  'LAMBDA'
                lambda = varargin{i+1};
            case 'TOLF'
                tol_f = varargin{i+1};
            case 'M0'
                M = varargin{i+1};
            case 'VERBOSE'
                verbose = varargin{i+1};
            otherwise
                % Hmmm, something wrong with the parameter string
                error(['Unrecognized option: ''' varargin{i} '''']);
        end;
    end;
end

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

if v[i] == 'MM_ITERS'
  MMiters = v[i+1];
elif v[i] == 'SPHERIZE'
 spherize = v[i+1];
...
else
  ... create an error here ...

There are other ways of programming this in python, just as there are in MATLAB. You could consider using a python set or python dictionary https://docs.python.org/2/library/stdtypes.html#set

For example, you could create a dict of names and default values. Then as you went through v, you could

if v[i] in d
 d[v[i]] = v[i+1];
else
 ... create an error here

[Aisse Torres Torres]

Thanks for the help!