Compare a string input to an Enumerated type

Question

I am looking to do a comparison of a string to and enumeration. I have written a sample code of what I am attempting. Since a String and and Enumerated type are different, h

Answer 1

Answering your actual question:

Ada doesn't allow you to compare values of different types directly, but luckily there is a way to convert an enumerated type to a string, which always works.

For any enumerated type T there exists a function:

function T'Image (Item : in T) return String;

which returns a string representation of the enumerated object passed to it.

Using that, you can declare a function, which compares a string and an enumerated type:

function "=" (Left  : in String;
              Right : in Enumerated_Type) return Boolean is
begin
   return Left = Enumerated_Type'Image (Right);
end "=";

If you want to do a case-insensitive comparison, you could map both strings to lower case before comparing them:

function "=" (Left  : in String;
              Right : in Enumerated_Type) return Boolean is
   use Ada.Characters.Handling;
begin
   return To_Lower (Left) = To_Lower (Enumerated_Type'Image (Right));
end "=";