Switch statements with string values

I decided to go ahead and implement string case values for switch statements:

def setOption(key:String, value:String) {

  switch key {

    case "TargetLanguage" {

      targetLanguage = value;

    }

    case "TokenType" {

      tokenTypeName = value;

    }

      

    case "TokenPrefix" {

      tokenNamePrefix = value;

    }

      

    case "StateType" {

      stateTypeName = value;

    }

    case "StartState" {

      startStateName = value;

    }

    else {

      // log unknown option

    }

  }

}

Currently it just transforms this construct into a sequence of if/else statements. However, it would be possible to optimize this by precomputing a hash value for each string, or making a first-letter index table.

In fact, it wouldn't be hard to extend this to any data type that is (a) hashable, and (b) representable as a constant literal. However, I'm not sure I want to go that far.