core.enum

Type-safe enumerations

Often there is the necessity to define functionality based on a set of values. If you have experience in C, you may have seen typedef enum { WHITE, BLACK, YELLOW } color_t; before. In PHP, one could write something like define('WHITE', 0); and define('BLACK', 1); which is pretty much what the C version does. The problem with these approaches are that they are not type-safe, and functionality needs to be attached by using switch or if-else cascades.

Further reading

Here's some more information on enums in the XP framework:

From our blog

• http://news.xp-framework.net/article/222/2007/11/12/Enum_usecases__Replace_switch_case_blocks
• http://news.xp-framework.net/article/207/2007/07/29/Enum_usecases__Profiling
• http://news.xp-framework.net/article/199/2007/07/05/EASC_and_enum_types

History

Enums were first introduced in July 2007 within xp-framework/rfc#132 .