How to use enums in C++

Question

Suppose we have an enum like the following:

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

I want to crea

Answer 1

You are looking for strongly typed enumerations, a feature available in the C++11 standard. It turns enumerations into classes with scope values.

Using your own code example, it is:

  enum class Days {Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday,Wednesday, Thursday, Friday};
  Days day = Days::Saturday;

  if (day == Days::Saturday)  {
    cout << " Today is Saturday !" << endl;
  }
  //int day2 = Days::Sunday; // Error! invalid

Using :: as accessors to enumerations will fail if targeting a C++ standard prior C++11. But some old compilers doesn't supported it, as well some IDEs just override this option, and set a old C++ std.

If you are using GCC, enable C+11 with -std=c++11 or -std=gnu11 .

Be happy!