Mutually Exclusive Booleans in a single Switch

Dear Matlab Commnunity

I have 4 mutually exclusive Boolean variables called "HH", "LH", "SO" and "CB". I wish an appropriate piece of code (concatenate string array for a plot legend) to run in the event any possible case is true. I currently have four separate 'if' statements;

legendtext = [];

if (HH == 1)

           legendtext = [legendtext, {'Heavy Holes'}];
end  

if (LH == 1)

           legendtext = [legendtext, {'Light Holes'}];
end  

if (SO == 1)

           legendtext = [legendtext, {'Spin Orbit'}];
end  

if (CB == 1)

           legendtext = [legendtext, {'Electrons'}];
end

in the event of all four booleans being false (== 0) legendtext is an empty array, and in the event all four booleans are true (= 1) legendtext is a 1x4 cell.

I tried using a 'switch' statement since I was under the pretence that while 'if' statements jump to the end when the criteria is met, 'switch' statements go through all cases;

legendtext = [];

switch 1

    case HH
        legendtext = [legendtext, {'Heavy Holes'}];
    case LH
        legendtext = [legendtext, {'Light Holes'}];
    case SO
        legendtext = [legendtext, {'Spin Orbit'}];
    case CB
        legendtext = [legendtext, {'Electrons'}];

end

however I learned that unlike in C, matlab terminates when a case is matched!

So my question is: is there a way of getting the switch (or any other) statement to scan each mutually exclusive Boolean without using 4 separate if statements? (like a continue statement in a while loop)

[Sean de Wolski]

What's wrong with 4 if-statements?

[Doug Hull]

If they are mutually exclusive, how can they all four be true as you stated?

[Robert Ward]

Apologies; I mean independent of each other rather than mutually exclusive. They are mutually exclusive in that if one is true it doesn't affect the others.

[Andrew Newell]

I agree with @Sean de - if statements seem like the simplest choice for this particular problem.

Answer 1

[Matt Fig]

Although there appears to be nothing wrong with your multiple IF statements (except that perhaps the comparison to 1 is not necessary), why not use indexing?

legendtext2 = {'Heavy Holes' 'Light Holes' 'Spin Orbit' 'Electrons'};
legendtext2 = legendtext2([HH,LH,SO,CB])

[Robert Ward]

the if statements do indeed work OK however are cumbersome and would like to find another concise and efficient solution.

While the indexing technique does work I have additional statements when each is true (such as plot), so it doesn't completely solve the problem.

Thank you for your help.

Rob

[Walter Roberson]

Use function handles in connection with indexing.

[Matt Fig]

Of course you completely left out that there was other code in your selection statements. It would make things easier on those who are trying to help you if you _specified_ the problem before posting....

Since I am not sure what other types of things, besides a call to PLOT and the assignment of a legend string, is going within your selections, I cannot help further. Perhaps if you detailed the problem.....