title: PHP: are switch-case statements with strings inefficient?
body: <p>In my PHP layer I'm receiving error codes as strings ("NOT_FOUND", "EXPIRED", etc). It's a small list of possible strings, perhaps a dozen. </p>
  
  <p>What's the most efficient way of dealing with these? Using switch-case against string constants stored in a class, or should I parse them to numbers (or something) first? Or is PHP smart enough so it doesn't really matter? </p>