Question

Is there a way to associate a string from a text file with an enum value?

The problem is: I have a few enum values stored as string in a text file which I read on the fly on meeting some condition… Now I want to assign the read value to an enum.

What is the most effective way to do so? It doesn’t need to be the simplest approach.

Answer 1

You can set up a map that you can use over and over:

template <typename T> class EnumParser {     map <string, T> enumMap; public:     EnumParser(){};      T ParseSomeEnum(const string &value)     {          map <string, T>::const_iterator iValue = enumMap.find(value);         if (iValue  == enumMap.end())             throw runtime_error('');         return iValue->second;     } };  enum SomeEnum {     Value1,     Value2 }; EnumParser<SomeEnum>::EnumParser() {     enumMap['Value1'] = Value1;     enumMap['Value2'] = Value2; }  enum OtherEnum {     Value3,      Value4 }; EnumParser<OtherEnum>::EnumParser() {     enumMap['Value3'] = Value3;     enumMap['Value4'] = Value4; }  int main() {     EnumParser<SomeEnum> parser;     cout << parser.ParseSomeEnum('Value2'); }