Is there any well-known paradigm for iterating enum values?
- by SadSido
I have some C++ code, in which the following enum is declared:
enum Some
{
Some_Alpha = 0,
Some_Beta,
Some_Gamma,
Some_Total
};
int array[Some_Total];
The values of Alpha, Beta and Gamma are sequential, and I gladly use the following cycle to iterate through them:
for ( int someNo = (int)Some_Alpha; someNo < (int)Some_Total; ++someNo ) {}
This cycle is ok, until I decide to change the order of the declarations in the enum, say, making Beta the first value and Alpha - the second one. That invalidates the cycle header, because now I have to iterate from Beta to Total.
So, what are the best practices of iterating through enum? I want to iterate through all the values without changing the cycle headers every time. I can think of one solution:
enum Some
{
Some_Start = -1,
Some_Alpha,
...
Some_Total
};
int array[Some_Total];
and iterate from (Start + 1) to Total, but it seems ugly and I have never seen someone doing it in the code. Is there any well-known paradigm for iterating through the enum, or I just have to fix the order of the enum values? (let's pretend, I really have some awesome reasons for changing the order of the enum values)...
