Does the VB.NET 2008 compiler selectively optimize Select Case Statements?
For example, a Select Case Statement with a sufficient quantity of integer cases could be organized as a binary search.
I ask this because I am curious whether or not I should opt for a Select Case in place of If Statements with multiple Else If's where integers or other basic data types are being compared.
Select Case with 40 choices is more than 10x faster than a string of 40 ElseIf statements. That is more improvement than you would expect to get with a binary search. I would guess that a simple integer Select Case uses whatever the modern machine code equivalent of a computed goto statement is -- it compiles so that it branches directly to the proper "case" based on the value of the integer.
I think Select Case is the one to go with.