I've got a define such as \def\doctype{SomeString}. \doctype can take on one of five values. I want to do something like a switch statement in a programming language, i.e. (pseudocode):

switch (\doctype) { case 'SomeString1': some text here case 'SomeString2': some different text here ... } 

(I don't need a default/else/otherwise case.) I tried doing this in LaTeX with:

\documentclass{article} \usepackage{etoolbox} \def\doctype{SomeString1} \newenvironment{switchdoctype}[0]{% \newcommand{\case}[2]{\ifdefequal{\doctype}{##1}{##2}{}}% }{} \begin{document} \begin{switchdoctype} \case{SomeString1}{some text here} \case{SomeString2}{some different text here} \end{switchdoctype} \end{document} 

This gives an error: ERROR: Argument of \@secondoftwo has an extra }. I gather this is some sort of problem with using \ifdefequal. How can I make this work? I suspect it's some trick of expansion but I can't make this work with my limited knowledge of [La]TeX; I'm interested in learning something from making this work.

MacTeX 2010 here, which is based on TeX Live 2010 AFAIK. Thanks!

P.S.: boolexpr has a \switch but I can't use it because it conflicts badly with etoolbox (and BibLaTeX depends on etoolbox as far as I can tell). I have reported this incompatibility to the author listed in boolexpr's documentation.