Programming identifiers often need to contain acronyms and initialisms that are already in uppercase, such as "old HTML file". By analogy with the title case rules, the natural camel case rendering would have the abbreviation all in uppercase, namely "oldHTMLFile". However, this approach is problematic when two acronyms occur together (e.g., "parse DBM XML" would become "parseDBMXML") or when the standard mandates lower camel case but the name begins with an abbreviation (e.g. "SQL server" would become "sQLServer"). For this reason, some programmers prefer to treat abbreviations as if they were words and write "oldHtmlFile", "parseDbmXml" or "sqlServer".[35] However, this can make it harder to recognize that a given word is intended as an acronym.[36]
A 2009 study of 135 subjects comparing snake case (underscored identifiers) to camel case found that camel case identifiers were recognized with higher accuracy among all subjects. Subjects recognized snake case identifiers more quickly than camel case identifiers. Training in camel case sped up camel case recognition and slowed snake case recognition, although this effect involved coefficients with high p-values. The study also conducted a subjective survey and found that non-programmers either preferred underscores or had no preference, and 38% of programmers trained in camel case stated a preference for underscores. However, these preferences had no statistical correlation to accuracy or speed when controlling for other variables.[42]
A 2010 follow-up study used a similar study design with 15 subjects consisting of expert programmers trained primarily in snake case. It used a static rather than animated stimulus and found perfect accuracy in both styles except for one incorrect camel case response. Subjects recognized identifiers in snake case more quickly than camel case. The study used eye-tracking equipment and found that the difference in speed for its subjects was primarily due to the fact that average duration of fixations for camel-case was significantly higher than that of snake case for 3-part identifiers. The survey recorded a mixture of preferred identifier styles but again there was no correlation of preferred style to accuracy or speed.[43]
Like if statements, switch case controls the flow of programs by allowing programmers to specify different code that should be executed in various conditions. In particular, a switch statement compares the value of a variable to the values specified in case statements. When a case statement is found whose value matches that of the variable, the code in that case statement is run.
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