Question

How can I get rid of the warning, without explicitly scoping the enum properly? The standards-compliant code would be to compare against foo::bar::mUpload (see here), but the explicit scopes are really long and make the darn thing unreadable.

maybe there’s another way that doesn’t use typedef? i don’t want to modify the enum–i didn’t write it and its in use elsewhere.

warning C4482: nonstandard extension used: enum 'foo::bar::baz' used in qualified name

namespace foo { 
class bar { 
enum baz {mUpload = 0, mDownload};
}
}

typedef foo::bar::baz mode_t;
mode_t mode = getMode(); 

if (mode == mode_t::mUpload) //C4482
{
 return uploadthingy();
}
else 
{
 assert(mode == mode_t::mDownload); //C4482
 return downloadthingy();
}

Answer 1

If the enum is defined within a class, the best that you can do is bring the class into your own scope and just use class_name::value or define a typedef of the class. In C++03 the values of an enum are part of the enclosing scope (which in your case is the class). In C++0x/11 you will be able to qualify the values with the enum name:

namespace first { namespace second {
   struct enclosing {
      enum the_enum { one_value, another };
   }
}}
using first::second::enclosing;
typedef first::second::enclosing the_enclosing;

assert( enclosing::one_value != the_enclosing::another );

In the future, your usage will be correct (C++11):

typedef first::second::enclosing::the_enum my_enum;
assert( my_enum::one_value != my_enum::another );