SafeEnum

A type-safe, powerful enumeration implementation for C++ with features like automatic string conversion and iterators.

Features

Improves type-safety of native enum data type in C++ 03 to provide C++ 11 like enum classes. The extended features over C++ 11 enums are:

• automatic string conversion
• dynamic checks to ensure only valid enumerations
• iterators, also for non-contiguous enumerations
• compile time enumeration count, also for non-contiguous enumerations
• multi platform support, tested on major compilers: MSVC, GCC and Clang
• support for enum method extension

Installation

The safeenum implementation is header only, it's requirements are: variadic macros and unordered_map(C++03 TR1) support.

Usage

You must use the SAFE_ENUM_DECLARE macro for declaration to be able to use the extended features:

	SAFE_ENUM_DECLARE(Shape,
                      eCircle, eSquare, eTriangle);
                  
	//or you can also declare an enum class using unsigned char
	SAFE_ENUM_TYPE_DECLARE(Shape, unsigned char,
	                       eCircle, eSquare, eTriangle);

If you don't wish the extended features(eg. string conversion, iterators, count) you can declare it manually:

	struct Color_def {
	    enum type { eRed, eGreen, eBlue };
	};
	typedef util::SafeEnum<Color_def> Color;
	
	// or as before you can also declare it using unsigned char
	struct Shape_def {
	    enum type { eCircle, eSquare, eTriangle };
	};
	typedef util::SafeEnum<Shape_def, unsigned char> Shape;

If you wish to have extended features on your custom enum class use the SAFE_ENUM_DEFINE_FORMAT macro:

    struct Shape_def {
	    SAFE_ENUM_DEFINE_FORMAT(eCircle, eSquare, eTriangle);
	    //other methods down here
	};
	typedef util::SafeEnum<Shape_def, unsigned char> Shape;

Be sure to check the test folder for more detailed examples.

Contributing

Based on Type Safe Enum on wikibooks. Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/tuxalin/safeenum.

License

The code is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.