In Java SE 7 and later, you can use a String object in the switch statement's expression
public class StringSwitchDemo { public static int getMonthNumber(String month) { int monthNumber = 0; if (month == null) { return monthNumber; } switch (month.toLowerCase()) { case "january": monthNumber = 1; break; case "february": monthNumber = 2; break; case "march": monthNumber = 3; break; case "april": monthNumber = 4; break; case "may": monthNumber = 5; break; case "june": monthNumber = 6; break; case "july": monthNumber = 7; break; case "august": monthNumber = 8; break; case "september": monthNumber = 9; break; case "october": monthNumber = 10; break; case "november": monthNumber = 11; break; case "december": monthNumber = 12; break; default: monthNumber = 0; break; } return monthNumber; } public static void main(String[] args) { String month = "August"; int returnedMonthNumber = StringSwitchDemo.getMonthNumber(month); if (returnedMonthNumber == 0) { System.out.println("Invalid month"); } else { System.out.println(returnedMonthNumber); } } }