C++ string to enum

Question

Is there a simple way in C++ to convert a string to an enum (similar to Enum.Parse in C#)? A switch statement would be very long, so I was wondering i

Answer 1

A std::map (or unordered_map) could do it easily. Populating the map would be just as tedious as the switch statement though.

Edit: Since C++11, populating is trivial:

static std::unordered_map const table = { {"a",E::a}, {"b",E::b} };
auto it = table.find(str);
if (it != table.end()) {
  return it->second;
} else { error() }