Python 3.10 is beginning to fill out with plenty of fascinating new features. One of those, in particular, caught my attention - structural pattern matching - or as most of us will know it, switch/case statements.

Switch-statements have been absent from Python despite being a common feature of most languages.

Back in 2006, PEP 3103 was raised, recommending the implementation of a switch-case statement. However, after a poll at PyCon 2007 received no support for the feature, the Python devs dropped it.

Fast-forward to 2020, and Guido van Rossum, the creator of Python, committed the first documentation showing the new switch-statements, which have been named Structural Pattern Matching, as found in PEP 634.

Python switch-statements are not just switch-statements, they are much more powerful thanks to their structural pattern matching capabilities.

Let's take a look at how this new logic works.