It’s perfectly valid to leave out the break when you return from a switch.
But it’s fairly common practise to add explicit breaks to every case as a defensive programming practise.
switch ($foo) {
case 1:
return 1;
break;
case 2:
return 2;
break;
}
The idea is that should you later change your code in case 1 and remove the return statement, you could forget to add a break.
That would accidentally cause program flow to fall through to case 2.
switch ($foo) {
case 1:
somethingDifferent();
case 2:
return 2;
break;
}
Falling through case statements is slightly unusual and you should add a comment to your code when you do it to show that it’s intentional.
switch ($foo) {
case 1:
somethingDifferentAndWeWantToDoCase2AsWell();
// fallthrough
case 2:
return 2;
break;
}
As with many defensive programming practises you’ve got to balance whether the code bloat – which potentially clutters your code and make it less readable – is worth it or not.