enums

utzoo!decvax!harpo!npoiv!alice!research!dmr utzoo!decvax!harpo!npoiv!alice!research!dmr
Mon Nov 8 02:16:38 AEST 1982


There has been a lot of grousing about the uselessness of the enum type
in C, most of it justified under the circumstances.  The circumstances
are that all versions of PCC that I know of are buggy in their treatment
of this type.

Enums were intended to be entirely equivalent to ints; just a way, really,
of defining names for constants understood by the compiler and subject
to the normal scope rules.

There was a clear choice here: enums as utterly separate collections of atoms,
more or less as in Pascal, or as ways of naming integers.  I chose the
latter after some waffling.  Unfortunately, some of the waffle batter
got mixed in with PCC and has stayed there.

		Dennis Ritchie



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