Why enum in c

Conclusion The enum program in C could be considered an optional method for standalone programs or small-sized projects since programmers can always use macro instead of an enum. However, experienced programmers tend to use enum over macro for large-scale software development projects.

This helps in writing clean and readable programs. I am a passionate software engineer and blogger. Follow me at thecloudstrap. The enum program in the C programming language is used to define integral constant values, which is very helpful in writing clean and readable programs. Programmers normally use enumeration to define named integral constants in their programs to provide better readability and maintainability of the software.

This article will discuss enum in detail. Sukumar Paul I am a passionate software engineer and blogger. View all posts. This way you could refer to your constants like SpaceshipClass::galaxy. Lindydancer Lindydancer Venu Yanamandra Venu Yanamandra 9 2 2 bronze badges.

Thanks for pointing it right Jim. I seem to have read about some implications of enum w. The one other demarkation would be the use of enums in block scope. The Overflow Blog.

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Linked Related Hot Network Questions. Stack Overflow works best with JavaScript enabled. An enum in C is a user-defined data type and it consists set of named constant integer. Using the enum keyword, we can declare an enumeration type with using the enumeration tag optional and a list of named integer. Basically, we used the enum to increase the code readability and with enum easy to debug the code as compared to symbolic constant macro.

The most important property of enum is that it follows the scope rule and the compiler automatically assigns the value to its member constant. Note: A variable of enumeration type stores one of the values of the enumeration list defined by that type. In the below example, I have declared an enum of day type, by default, all members of the enum would be the integer constant.

If we do not initialize the member of the list with a value then compiler automatic assigns the value to each member of the list in the increasing order. Note: By default compiler always assign 0 to the first constant member of the enumeration list. In the above example, we have seen, how to use enum in C programming.

I have already discussed, if we do not assign the value to the enumeration constant then compiler automatically assigns the 0 to the first member of the list and increase these value by 1 in a forward sequence for each member of the list. You can see above mentioned code where I have created a variable of enumeration day type and assign it two consecutive constant members Mon, Tue and print the variable.

Your free trial is waiting. In enumeration, the set of enumeration constant may contain a duplicate value. In other words, we can say, two constant members may have the same value.