How about a templated class for perfect hashing instead: Something like a customizable string enumeration. You parametrize the class with the possible values. The class has member functions for reading or for hashing string values with and without guarantee/check that it is one of the predefined values. It also has the reverse function of returning the string for a hash. The class can create a hash value even during compile-time. Then it can be used for the existing switch case or for parsing.