Disallow Case Statement Fallthrough (no-fallthrough)

The switch statement in JavaScript is one of the more error-prone constructs of the language thanks in part to the ability to “fall through” from one case to the next. For example:

switch(foo) {
    case 1:
        doSomething();

    case 2:
        doSomethingElse();
}

In this example, if foo is 1,then execution will flow through both cases, as the first falls through to the second. You can prevent this by using break, as in this example:

switch(foo) {
    case 1:
        doSomething();
        break;

    case 2:
        doSomethingElse();
}

That works fine when you don’t want a fallthrough, but what if the fallthrough is intentional, there is no way to indicate that in the language. It’s considered a best practice to always indicate when a fallthrough is intentional using a comment:

switch(foo) {
    case 1:
        doSomething();
        // falls through

    case 2:
        doSomethingElse();
}

In this example, there is no confusion as to the expected behavior. It is clear that the first case is meant to fall through to the second case.

Rule Details

This rule is aimed at eliminating unintentional fallthrough of one case to the other. As such, it flags and fallthrough scenarios that are not marked by a comment.

The following patterns are considered warnings:

switch(foo) {
    case 1:
        doSomething();

    case 2:
        doSomething();
}

The following patterns are considered okay and do not cause warnings:

switch(foo) {
    case 1:
        doSomething();
        break;

    case 2:
        doSomething();
}

switch(foo) {
    case 1:
        doSomething();
        return;

    case 2:
        doSomething();
}

switch(foo) {
    case 1:
        doSomething();
        throw new Error("Boo!");

    case 2:
        doSomething();
}

switch(foo) {
    case 1:
    case 2:
        doSomething();
}

switch(foo) {
    case 1:
        doSomething();
        // falls through

    case 2:
        doSomething();
}

Note that the last case statement in these examples does not cause a warning because there is nothing to fall through into.

When Not To Use It

If you don’t want to enforce that each case statement should end with a throw, return, break, or comment, then you can safely turn this rule off.

Version

This rule was introduced in ESLint 0.0.7.

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