[jpz]

It simplifies the expression of if/then/elsif/elsif/else, even if it's not total.

Why not steal it?

[arp242]

One reason to not add it might be that it makes the language larger and more complex.

Also, the semantics of match are a bit different than the similar switch, since match does strict type checking and switch doesn't. While this isn't bad as such, it's kinda confusing that the language doesn't behave consistently.

[yetkin]

but why all of a sudden languages started to add this? Maybe the function itself needs to be simplified, maybe there is a design issue. i am failing to see how "if else" can be simplified via a synth sugar.

[nicoburns]

It's a switch statement that's an expression. That's a nice ergonomic improvement when you want to assign the result to a variable. Especially as it allows you to use a non-mutable variable whereas otherwise you'd have to make it mutable.

[chmod775]

I wouldn't compare it to a switch statement, because a switch statement - even though it looks similar - has fundamentally different control flow.

[beberlei]

one benefit of match over switch is that it uses === and not == internally. So it does not suffer from type coercion problems.