Getting enum Values by its index

Question

How can I access each value of the enum by the index?

for instance,

enum food{PIZZA, BURGER, HOTDOG};

as we all know, the index of the first element starts from 0 unless initialized.

How can I get the string value of the enum from the index?

How can I get it to print the PIZZA?

cout << food(0);

I know it's not correct, but please advise me thanks.

enums don't have indices. They have a set of values that their instances can have. — juanchopanza, Nov 01 '14 at 09:56

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 01 '14 at 09:58

You can't get the string representation of an enum in c++.

You have to store them somewhere else.

Example

enum food{PIZZA, BURGER, HOTDOG}

char* FoodToString(food foodid)
{
    char* foodStrings[3] = {"PIZZA","BURGER","HOTDOG"};

    return foodstrings[foodid];
}

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited Dec 18 '16 at 00:52

There's no way of doing that because there's no need to do that. Generally enums are used to replace integral values we use for example:-

int func () 
{
 //...
if (something )
  return 0;
  return 1;
}

could be replaced with

enum Status { SUCCESS, FAILURE };

Status func () 
{
 //...
if (something )
  return SUCCESS;
  return FAILURE;
}

for better readability.

If you want to get enum value by providing index then you can store index with enum values in some sort of map ( for unordered_map ).

Getting enum Values by its index

2 Answers2