Making use of a fall-through switch

Question

While researching for better ways to make use of a switch statement, I found this stackoverflow example. I wanted to do something similar, but with a twist:

switch($status)
{
 case "a":
 case "b":
  echo "start execute code for case a and b";
 case "a":
  echo "continue to execute code for case a only";
 case "b":
  echo "continue to execute code for case b only";
 case "a":
 case "b":
  echo "complete code execution for case a and b";
 break;
 case "c":
  echo "execute code for case c";
 break;
 case "d":
  echo "execute code for case d";
 break;
 case "e":
  echo "execute code for case e";
 break;
 case "f":
  echo "execute code for case f";
 break;
 default:
  echo "execute code for default case";
}

Yes, the above obviously doesn't work out as planned because case "a" will fall-through through until it hits a break. I just want to know whether there is a way to do this elegantly without repeating too much code.

Answer 1

Here is what I think would be an elegant solution:

switch($status)
{
 case "a":
 case "b":
  echo "start execute code for case a and b";
  if($status == "a") echo "continue to execute code for case a only";
  if($status == "b") echo "continue to execute code for case b only";
  echo "complete code execution for case a and b";
 break;
 case "c":
  echo "execute code for case c";
 break;
 case "d":
  echo "execute code for case d";
 break;
 case "e":
  echo "execute code for case e";
 break;
 case "f":
  echo "execute code for case f";
 break;
 default:
  echo "execute code for default case";
}

I am not trying to invent anything new here. Just trying to learn from the experiences of everyone here. Thanks to all who provided me with answers.