Let's say you have many paths that an application can take at a certain point based on the value of a specific input (for example a simple int). Is there a certain method that is most efficient for picking which path to follow? A nice and organized way would be a simple switch statement, but does that scale as the number of possible cases grows larger? Is there a better method when you have, say 100 or 1000 possible cases? Assume polymorphism isn't applicable and each case has totally unique functions which cannot be abstracted further.

Edit: Just to clarify, this is a thought experiment, I'm not actually writing code with 1000 cases. Also I found this related question to be enlightening on how the compiler/JIT handle the issue: http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/79111/why-use-an-oo-approach-instead-of-a-giant-switch-statement

Let's say you have many paths that an application can take at a certain point based on the value of a specific input (for example a simple int). Is there a certain method that is most efficient for picking which path to follow? A nice and organized way would be a simple switch statement, but does that scale as the number of possible cases grows larger? Is there a better method when you have, say 100 or 1000 possible cases? Assume polymorphism isn't applicable and each case has totally unique functions which cannot be abstracted further.

Edit: Just to clarify, this is a thought experiment, I'm not actually writing code with 1000 cases. Also I found this related question to be enlightening on how the compiler/JIT handle the issue: Why use an OO approach instead of a giant "switch" statement?

Let's say you have many paths that an application can take at a certain point based on the value of a specific input (for example a simple int). Is there a certain method that is most efficient for picking which path to follow? A nice and organized way would be a simple switch statement, but does that scale as the number of possible cases grows larger? Is there a better method when you have, say 100 or 1000 possible cases? Assume polymorphism isn't applicable and each case has totally unique functions which cannot be abstracted further.

Let's say you have many paths that an application can take at a certain point based on the value of a specific input (for example a simple int). Is there a certain method that is most efficient for picking which path to follow? A nice and organized way would be a simple switch statement, but does that scale as the number of possible cases grows larger? Is there a better method when you have, say 100 or 1000 possible cases? Assume polymorphism isn't applicable and each case has totally unique functions which cannot be abstracted further.

Edit: Just to clarify, this is a thought experiment, I'm not actually writing code with 1000 cases. Also I found this related question to be enlightening on how the compiler/JIT handle the issue: http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/79111/why-use-an-oo-approach-instead-of-a-giant-switch-statement