THINK++ — Engineering Visualized

Named Constants

C++ Enumerations

An enum is a user-defined type consisting of a set of named integer constants. It makes code more readable and self-documenting.

BASIC ENUM

enum Color { RED, GREEN, BLUE };

Color myColor = GREEN;
if (myColor == GREEN) {
    // RED is 0, GREEN is 1, BLUE is 2
}

ENUM CLASS (C++11+)

enum class Status { PENDING, SUCCESS, FAILED };

Status s = Status::SUCCESS; // Scoped & Type-safe!

Always prefer enum class to prevent naming collisions and accidental integer conversions.

CUSTOM VALUES

You can assign specific values to enum members. By default, they start at 0 and increment by 1.

enum HTTP { OK = 200, ERROR = 404, TIMEOUT = 408 };

Loading Lab...