Hashcode switch problem

Question

Hello. Can anyone tell me why this isn't working? I'm trying to use a switch off of a String, so I take the hashcode of it and compare it to the possible input strings. It looks like it should work, it's just comparing intergers, but my compiler always gives me an error "constant expression required". Why is this happenning?
Here is my code:
final int string1 = "hello".hashCode() ;
final int string2 = "goodbye".hashCode() ;
String input ;
switch( input.hashCode() )
case string1 :
// stuff
case string2 :
// stuff
}The compiler always hits the error on the 'case string1:' line. How can it say "i need a constant value" when the value it's using is a final? Isn't that constant enough?

Answer 1

final int string1 = "hello".hashCode() ;
final int string2 = "goodbye".hashCode() ;is resolved at run-time.
switch( input.hashCode() )
case string1 :
case string2 :is resolved at compile-time.
so you have to use if..else..endif; however I don't see why you would need hashCode() to compare strings.
Maybe for performance ??? Then you should make sure that using hashCode() is really faster. otherwise you end up with VERY strange code.