Grouse: What's the point of enum?

Chris Torek torek at elf.ee.lbl.gov
Fri Apr 19 04:45:16 AEST 1991


>>[enumerated types are ridiculously weak; why do they exist at all?]

In article <1991Apr18.153418.13527 at zoo.toronto.edu> henry at zoo.toronto.edu
(Henry Spencer) writes:
>Just ignoring them is the simplest thing to do.

It is sometimes nice to have a symbolic debugger print

	state = TCPSTATE_ESTABLISHED

or whatever, and it is sometimes nice to allow the compiler to choose
the types and values of enumeration variables and constants.  A few
compilers will also warn about `mixed up' enumerations (enum apple
with enum orange).  That makes three tiny points in favour :-)
-- 
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Lawrence Berkeley Lab CSE/EE (+1 415 486 5427)
Berkeley, CA		Domain:	torek at ee.lbl.gov



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