Learn English – Are “when”, “where” and “of” equally valid after “to include the case…”

grammaticalitywhenwhereword-choice

What are the rules for the usage of this construct?

For example, suppose you've written a StackExchange answer, and later you decided edit it so that your proposed solution handles an additional case. If you wanted to say "I've edited my answer to include the case…" would you follow that with when, where or of? What are the grammatical conditions?

I know it must have something to do with the following part of your sentence being "situational", "descriptive", etc. but I'm not sure.

Best Answer

As long as I know, in the case of is followed by a noun and never requires a verb. Like this:

In the case of Abraham Lincoln, ...
... in the case of Lee Harvey Oswald.

On the other hand, in the case when and in the case where are interchangeable and require a verb with a noun, for example:

In the case where the application files cannot be found.
In the case when the application fails to compile.

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