[hermitdev]

I'm also dubious on the claim the switch statement is O(n). It might be in a pathological worst case, but you can pretty much bet the compiler is going to transform it into a jump table or other optimized execution (maybe a computed jump). Especially when the cases are contiguous like this...

I agree that a benchmark is warranted, or at least a comparison of the generated assembly (at different optimization levels).

[nynx]

Also, O(n) doesn’t mean much when the CPU can execute hundreds of checks in a few tens of cycles.

[dzaima]

Not for jumps - modern CPUs still (usually) have limit of one taken branch per cycle, or 1 to 2 untaken branches. And usually branch prediction will be the limiting factor anyway, for which a single branch is gonna be faster than many.