Print text instead of value from C enum

Question

int main()
{

  enum Days{Sunday,Monday,Tuesday,Wednesday,Thursday,Friday,Saturday};

  Days TheDay;

  int j = 0;

  printf(\"Please enter the day of the week (0 to         


        

Answer 1

There is another solution: Create your own dynamic enumeration class. Means you have a struct and some function to create a new enumeration, which stores the elements in a struct and each element has a string for the name. You also need some type to store a individual elements, functions to compare them and so on. Here is an example:

#include 
#include 
#include 
#include 
#include 
#include 


struct Enumeration_element_T
{
  size_t index;
  struct Enumeration_T *parrent;
  char *name;
};

struct Enumeration_T
{
  size_t len;
  struct Enumeration_element_T elements[];
};
  


void enumeration_delete(struct Enumeration_T *self)
{
  if(self)
  {
    while(self->len--)
    {
      free(self->elements[self->len].name);
    }
    free(self);
  }
}

struct Enumeration_T *enumeration_create(size_t len,...)
{
  //We do not check for size_t overflows, but we should.
  struct Enumeration_T *self=malloc(sizeof(self)+sizeof(self->elements[0])*len);
  if(!self)
  {
    return NULL;
  }
  self->len=0;
  va_list l; 
  va_start(l,len);
  for(size_t i=0;ielements[i].name=malloc(strlen(name)+1);
    if(!self->elements[i].name)
    {
      enumeration_delete(self);
      return NULL;
    }
    strcpy(self->elements[i].name,name);
    self->len++;
  }
  return self;
}


bool enumeration_isEqual(struct Enumeration_element_T *a,struct Enumeration_element_T *b)
{
  return a->parrent==b->parrent && a->index==b->index;
}

bool enumeration_isName(struct Enumeration_element_T *a, const char *name)
{
  return !strcmp(a->name,name);
}

const char *enumeration_getName(struct Enumeration_element_T *a)
{
  return a->name;
}

struct Enumeration_element_T *enumeration_getFromName(struct Enumeration_T *self, const char *name)
{
  for(size_t i=0;ilen;i++)
  {
    if(enumeration_isName(&self->elements[i],name))
    {
      return &self->elements[i];
    }
  }
  return NULL;
}
  
struct Enumeration_element_T *enumeration_get(struct Enumeration_T *self, size_t index)
{
  return &self->elements[index];
}

size_t enumeration_getCount(struct Enumeration_T *self)
{
  return self->len;
}

bool enumeration_isInRange(struct Enumeration_T *self, size_t index)
{
  return indexlen;
}



int main(void)
{
  struct Enumeration_T *weekdays=enumeration_create(7,"Sunday","Monday","Tuesday","Wednesday","Thursday","Friday","Saturday");
  if(!weekdays)
  {
    return 1;
  }
    
  printf("Please enter the day of the week (0 to 6)\n");
  size_t j = 0;
  if(scanf("%zu",&j)!=1)
  {
    enumeration_delete(weekdays);
    return 1;
  }
  // j=j%enumeration_getCount(weekdays); //alternative way to make sure j is in range
  if(!enumeration_isInRange(weekdays,j))
  {
    enumeration_delete(weekdays);
    return 1;
  }

  struct Enumeration_element_T *day=enumeration_get(weekdays,j);
  

  printf("%s\n",enumeration_getName(day));
  
  enumeration_delete(weekdays);

  return 0;
}

The functions of enumeration should be in their own translation unit, but i combined them here to make it simpler.

The advantage is that this solution is flexible, follows the DRY principle, you can store information along with each element, you can create new enumerations during runtime and you can add new elements during runtime. The disadvantage is that this is complex, needs dynamic memory allocation, can't be used in switch-case, needs more memory and is slower. The question is if you should not use a higher level language in cases where you need this.