This is listed in the documentation above, but it's a bit tucked away between the paragraphs. The difference between a series of if statements and the switch statement is that the expression you're comparing with, is evaluated only once in a switch statement. I think this fact needs a little bit more attention, so here's an example:<?php$a = 0;if(++$a == 3) echo 3;elseif(++$a == 2) echo 2;elseif(++$a == 1) echo 1;else echo "No match!";// Outputs: 2$a = 0;switch(++$a) {    case 3: echo 3; break;    case 2: echo 2; break;    case 1: echo 1; break;    default: echo "No match!"; break;}// Outputs: 1?>It is therefore perfectly safe to do:<?phpswitch(winNobelPrizeStartingFromBirth()) {case "peace": echo "You won the Nobel Peace Prize!"; break;case "physics": echo "You won the Nobel Prize in Physics!"; break;case "chemistry": echo "You won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry!"; break;case "medicine": echo "You won the Nobel Prize in Medicine!"; break;case "literature": echo "You won the Nobel Prize in Literature!"; break;default: echo "You bought a rusty iron medal from a shady guy who insists it's a Nobel Prize..."; break;}?>without having to worry about the function being re-evaluated for every case. There's no need to preemptively save the result in a variable either.

php 7.2.8.The answer to the eternal question " what is faster?":1 000 000 000 iterations.<?php$s = time();for ($i = 0; $i < 1000000000; ++$i) {  $x = $i%10;  if ($x == 1) {    $y = $x * 1;  } elseif ($x == 2) {    $y = $x * 2;  } elseif ($x == 3) {    $y = $x * 3;  } elseif ($x == 4) {    $y = $x * 4;  } elseif ($x == 5) {    $y = $x * 5;  } elseif ($x == 6) {    $y = $x * 6;  } elseif ($x == 7) {    $y = $x * 7;  } elseif ($x == 8) {    $y = $x * 8;  } elseif ($x == 9) {    $y = $x * 9;  } else {    $y = $x * 10;  }}print("if: ".(time() - $s)."sec\n"); $s = time();for ($i = 0; $i < 1000000000; ++$i) {  $x = $i%10;  switch ($x) {  case 1:    $y = $x * 1;    break;  case 2:    $y = $x * 2;    break;  case 3:    $y = $x * 3;    break;  case 4:    $y = $x * 4;    break;  case 5:    $y = $x * 5;    break;  case 6:    $y = $x * 6;    break;  case 7:    $y = $x * 7;    break;  case 8:    $y = $x * 8;    break;  case 9:    $y = $x * 9;    break;  default:    $y = $x * 10;  }}print("switch: ".(time() - $s)."sec\n");?>Results:if: 69secswitch: 42sec

It is possible to prevent nested switch/match/if blocks by checking for multiple cases at once (just beware that PHP uses loose comparison here).<?php$a = "abc";$b = "def";switch ([$a, $b]) {    case ["abc", "def"]:        $result = 1;        break;    default:        $result = -1;} // $result == 1?>If for some cases one of the values is not important, you can use the variable itself:<?php$a = "abc";$b = "def";switch ([$a, $b]) {    case ["xyz", "def"]:        $result = 1;        break;    case [$a, "def"]:        $result = 2;        break;    default:        $result = -1;} // $result == 2?>

Just a trick I have picked up:

If you need to evaluate several variables to find the first one with an actual value, TRUE for instance. You can do it this was.

There is probably a better way but it has worked out well for me.

switch (true) {

  case (X != 1):

  case (Y != 1):

  default:
}

Although noted elsewhere, still worth noting is how loose comparison in switch-case was also affected by the change in string to number comparison. Prior PHP8, strings were converted to int before comparison. The reverse is now true which can cause issues for logic that relied on this behavior. <?phpfunction testSwitch($key) {    switch ($key) {        case 'non numeric string':            echo $key . ' matches "non numeric string"';            break;    }}testSwitch(0);    // pre-PHP8, returns '0 matches "non numeric string"'?>

The default case appears to always be evaluated last. If break is excluded from the default case, then the proceeding cases will be reevaluated. This behavior appears to be undocumented.<?php$kinds = ['moo', 'kind1', 'kind2'];foreach ($kinds as $kind) {    switch($kind)    {        default:            // The kind wasn't valid, set it to the default            $kind = 'kind1';            var_dump('default');            case 'kind1':            var_dump('1');            break;            case 'kind2':            var_dump('2');            break;            case 'kindn':            var_dump('n-th');            break;    }        echo "\n\n";}?>