Uploaded July 2024 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

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A match statement takes an expression and compares its value to successive patterns given as one or more case blocks. Specifically, pattern matching operates by:

1. using data with type and shape (the subject)
2. evaluating the subject in the match statement
3. comparing the subject with each pattern in a case statement from top to bottom until a match is confirmed.
4. executing the action associated with the pattern of the confirmed match

If an exact match is not confirmed, the last case, a wildcard _, if provided, will be used as the matching case. If an exact match is not confirmed and a wildcard case does not exist, the entire match block is a no-op.

# Match-case statement (switch): An alternative to using many 'elif' statements
# Execute some code if a value matches a 'case'
# Benefits: cleaner and syntax is more readable

def is_weekend(day):
match day:
case "Saturday" | "Sunday":
return True
case "Monday" | "Tuesday" | "Wednesday" | "Thursday" | "Friday":
return False
case _:
return False

print(is_weekend("Monday"))