namespaces for enum types – best practices

by

Original C++03 answer:

The benefit from a namespace (over a class) is that you can use using declarations when you want.

The problem with using a namespace is that namespaces can be expanded elsewhere in the code. In a large project, you would not be guaranteed that two distinct enums don’t both think they are called eFeelings

For simpler-looking code, I use a struct, as you presumably want the contents to be public.

If you’re doing any of these practices, you are ahead of the curve and probably don’t need to scrutinize this further.

Newer, C++11 advice:

If you are using C++11 or later, enum class will implicitly scope the enum values within the enum’s name.

With enum class you will lose implicit conversions and comparisons to integer types, but in practice that may help you discover ambiguous or buggy code.

More Related Contents:

  1. Nested templates with dependent scope
  2. Pros and cons of using nested C++ classes and enumerations?
  3. Referring to c++ enums [closed]
  4. Why ‘&’ reference in not required in classes in C++?
  5. Why is enum class preferred over plain enum?
  6. Forward declaration of nested types/classes in C++
  7. Why do multiple-inherited functions with same name but different signatures not get treated as overloaded functions?
  8. Derived template-class access to base-class member-data
  9. C++: Print out enum value as text
  10. What’s the scope of inline friend functions?
  11. C++ string to enum
  12. Should I use #define, enum or const?
  13. Scope of variables in if statements
  14. Why is it OK to return a ‘vector’ from a function?
  15. Is there any way to access a local variable in outer scope in C++?
  16. String to enum in C++
  17. How can I output the value of an enum class in C++11
  18. What is the underlying type of a c++ enum?
  19. The usage of anonymous enums
  20. Can I declare variables of different types in the initialization of a for loop? [duplicate]
  21. Scope of exception object in C++
  22. Enum vs Strongly typed enum
  23. Why do you use typedef when declaring an enum in C++?
  24. Equivalent of “using namespace X” for scoped enumerations?
  25. OpenMP: What is the benefit of nesting parallelizations?
  26. How to access variables defined and declared in one function in another function?
  27. generating random enums
  28. Mixing extern and const
  29. Scope and return values in C++
  30. Signedness of enum in C/C99/C++/C++x/GNU C/GNU C99

Leave a Comment