What is the purpose of anonymous enum declarations such as:
enum { color = 1 };
Why not just declare int color = 1?
What is the purpose of anonymous enum declarations such as: enum { color =
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What is the purpose of anonymous enum declarations such as:
enum { color = 1 };
Why not just declare int color = 1?
Enums don’t take up any space and are immutable.
If you used
const int color = 1;then you would solve the mutability issue but if someone took the address ofcolor(const int* p = &color;) then space for it would have to be allocated. This may not be a big deal but unless you explicitly want people to be able to take the address ofcoloryou might as well prevent it.Also when declaring a constant field in a class then it will have to be
static const(not true for modern C++) and not all compilers support inline initialization of static const members.Disclaimer: This answer should not be taken as advice to use
enumfor all numeric constants. You should do what you (or your co-workers) think is more readable. The answer just lists some reasons one might prefer to use anenum.