Many languages have a SwitchStatement Aka CaseStatement. Generally, these languages don't have convenient mapping abstractions built in, so a CaseStatement provides a syntatic sugar (as opposed to an abstraction) to help write constructs like {{{ if(x==3) goto case1; if(x==6 || x=7) goto case 2; goto default: case1: {a();} case2: {b();} default: { foo; } }}} as {{{ switch(x) { case1: {a();} case2: {b();} default: {foo;} } }}} over ifs and gotos for mapping between an index and some corresponding code. Gotos aren't necessarily bad, but a dictionary that maps a value to code you want to execute is an abstraction that matches the semantics intended for case statements. Python fortunately has mapping constructs built in, and has not need for a SwitchStatement: Simply use a dictionary to look up the code that corresponds to the case you want to handle for a given index value, and execute it.