Enums in C

 

What is Enum?

The enumeration in C, helps the programmer to create user-defined data types, to make the code more easy and readable. Enum is almost similar to structure, as it can hold any data type, that the programmer may want, this is advantageous when the program gets complicated or when more than one programmer would be working on it, for the sake of better understanding.  Enum saves time. Make the program more readable To define enums, the enum keyword is used enum variables can also take their corresponding integral value, starting from zero. 

How to declare an enum?

Declaring an enum is almost similar to declaring a structure. We can declare an enum using the keyword “enum” followed by the enum name, and then stating its elements with the curly braces “{}”, separated by commas.   

enum color {

red,

green,

blue

};

• The first part of the above declaration declares the data type and specifies its possible values. These values are called “enumerators”.
• The second part declares the variables of these data-types

 

 

How does enum works?

The variables declared within the enum, are treated as integers, i.e.; each variable of the enumerator can take its corresponding integral value, starting from zero(0). That means in our above-discussed example,

• res = 0
• green = 1
• blue = 2

The main purpose of using enumerated variables is to ease the understanding of the program. For example, if we need to employ departments in a payroll program, it’ll make the listing easier to read if we use values like Assembly, Production, Accounts, etc, rather than using 1,2, and 3. Let's take one more example for understanding this

#include<stdio.h>

#include<string.h>

void main()

   {

       enum emp_dept    //declaring enum emp_dept and its variables

           {

                 assembly,

                 manufacturing,

                 accounts,

                 stores

           };

       struct employee   //declaring srtucture

           {

              char name[30];

              int age;

              float bs;

              enum emp_dept department;

           };

         struct employee e;

       strcpy(e.name, "Coding Turtle");   //intializing employee details

       e.age=21;

       e.bs=125000;

       e.department=stores;



       printf("\n Name=%s",e.name);

       printf("\n Age=%d",e.age);

       printf("\n Basic Salary=%f",e.bs);  

       printf("\n Department=%d",e.department);



          if(e.department==accounts)

              printf("\n %s is an accountant",e.name);

          else

              printf("\n %s is not an accountant",e.name);

    }

Output

Name=Coding Turtle

 Age=21

 Basic Salary=125000.000000

 Department=3

 Coding Turtle is not an accountant

Name=Vibush Upadhyay
 Age=22
 Basic Salary=12500.000000
 Department=3
 Vibush Upadhyay is not an accountant