Is it possible to map string to int faster than using hashmap?

Question

I understand that I should not optimize every single spot of my program so please consider this question to be \"academic\"

I have maximum 100 strings and integer n

Answer 1

If the strings are known at compile-time you can just use an enumeration:

enum
{
  Str1,
  Str2
};

const char *Strings = {
  "Str1",
  "Str2"
};

Using some macro tricks you can remove the redundancy of re-creating the table in two locations (using file inclusion and #undef).

Then lookup can be achieved as fast as indexing an array:

const char *string = Strings[Str1]; // set to "Str1"

This would have optimal lookup time and locality of reference.