Why the switch statement cannot be applied on strings?

Question

Compiling the following code and got the error of type illegal.

int main()
{
    // Compilation error - switch expression of type illegal
    sw         


        

Answer 1

To add a variation using the simplest container possible (no need for an ordered map)... I wouldn't bother with an enum--just put the container definition immediately before the switch so it'll be easy to see which number represents which case.

This does a hashed lookup in the unordered_map and uses the associated int to drive the switch statement. Should be quite fast. Note that at is used instead of [], as I've made that container const. Using [] can be dangerous--if the string isn't in the map, you'll create a new mapping and may end up with undefined results or a continuously growing map.

Note that the at() function will throw an exception if the string isn't in the map. So you may want to test first using count().

const static std::unordered_map string_to_case{
   {"raj",1},
   {"ben",2}
};
switch(string_to_case.at("raj")) {
  case 1: // this is the "raj" case
       break;
  case 2: // this is the "ben" case
       break;


}

The version with a test for an undefined string follows:

const static std::unordered_map string_to_case{
   {"raj",1},
   {"ben",2}
};
// in C++20, you can replace .count with .contains
switch(string_to_case.count("raj") ? string_to_case.at("raj") : 0) {
  case 1: // this is the "raj" case
       break;
  case 2: // this is the "ben" case
       break;
  case 0: //this is for the undefined case

}