Converting if-else statements to switch case

Unity Engine
,
1

I’ve been working a locational damage mechanic for my FPS game and rather than use tags, I’m using enums instead.
The code I have right now works fine, but I’ve had difficulty converting it to a switch statements.
Below is the relevant parts of code:

public void rayShoot()
    {
        Vector3 rayFrom = fpsCam.ViewportToWorldPoint (new Vector3 (0.0f, 0.0f, 0.2f));
            RaycastHit Hit;
          
            Debug.DrawRay(rayFrom, fpsCam.transform.forward * magRange, Color.green);
          
            if(Physics.Raycast (rayFrom, fpsCam.transform.forward, out Hit, magRange))
            {
                enemyLow enemyL = Hit.transform.GetComponentInParent<enemyLow>();
                bColl enLimbs = Hit.collider.GetComponentInChildren<bColl>();
                if(enemyL !=null)
                {
                if(enLimbs.currBody == Body.Head)
                {
                 Debug.Log("Headshot");
                 enemyL.headshot();
                }
                else if(enLimbs.currBody == Body.lShoulder)
                {
                 Debug.Log("Shoulder Left");
                 enemyL.hitThres = 1;
                 enemyL.locationDamage();
                }
                else if(enLimbs.currBody == Body.rShoulder)
                {
                 Debug.Log("Shoulder Right");
                 enemyL.hitThres = -1;
                 enemyL.locationDamage();
                }
              
                else if(enLimbs.currBody == Body.lArm)
                {
                 Debug.Log("Left Arm");
                }
              
                else if(enLimbs.currBody == Body.rArm)
                {
                 Debug.Log("Right Arm");
                }
              
                else if(enLimbs.currBody == Body.lLeg)
                {
                 Debug.Log("Left Leg");
                }
              
                else if(enLimbs.currBody == Body.rLeg)
                {
                 Debug.Log("Right Leg");
                }
              
                else
                {
                 Debug.Log("No specific part hit");
                 enemyL.TakeDamage();
                }
              
                }

However, when I try to change it to a switch statement to make the code a little cleaner like so:

enemyLow enemyL = Hit.transform.GetComponentInParent<enemyLow>();
               bColl enLimbs = Hit.collider.GetComponentInChildren<bColl>();
                if(enemyL !=null)
               {
               switch(enLimbs.currBody)
               {
                case enLimbs.currBody.Head:
                Debug.Log("Headshot");
                break;
               
                default:
                Debug.Log("No specific area shot, apply normal damage");
                break;
               }

Unity gives me an error of:
Assets\Naomi\Scripts\Weapon.cs(315,11): error CS0176: Member ‘Body.Head’ cannot be accessed with an instance reference; qualify it with a type name instead

Enum script code:

using System.Collections;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using UnityEngine;

public enum Body {
       Head,
       Chest,
       lShoulder,
       rShoulder,
       lArm,
       rArm,
       lLeg,
       rLeg,
       Hip
       };
public class bColl : MonoBehaviour {
   public Body currBody;
       
}

Is it possible to break it down into switch statement or am I just left with functional - but not neat - code for this game mechanic?

2

You just need to use the enums themselves in the switch-case:

switch (enLimbs.currBody)
{
    case Body.Head:
        break;
    //etc etc
}

Of course you’re probably better off not using enums here and instead define body parts in some more traditional OOP manner.

1 Like
3

Thanks for the quick response! I previously used tags, but after learning a little about enums through using them to set/check game difficulty, they seemed like an interesting alternative.

4

I would use neither.

Hell you shouldn’t need to check what body part you’re hitting at all. All that behaviour should be defined in the body part itself. And you can use some shallow inheritance, or pluggable behaviour with scriptable objects to define this.

1 Like