Question

I have an object and one of its properties is object.type when I return object.type it returns 2 but I would rather it return the enumeration of 2 for example soft

enum type {
    hard = 0,
    brittle,
    soft
};

Answer 1

The usual easiest (and correct) way of doing it may be using a std::map for that:

enum MyEnum {A, B, C};

std::map<MyEnum, std::string> myEnumDesc;
MyEnumDesc[A] = "A";
...

// Then
std::cout << myEnumDesc[object.type] << std::endl;

(if type is of type MyEnum). There are other alternatives, more or less portable, but you’re safe with this.