GameMaker Best way to iterate in an enum?

[MagnumVulcanos]

The question is self explanatory, I want to do something for every value in an enum.
Sadly enums aren't lists, and there's no java-like method like the following:

for ( value in enum ) {
  do thing with value
}

My current solution is this:

enum gases { carbon_dioxide, oxygen, nitrogen }
global.gases_listed = ds_list_create();
global.gases_listed[|0] = gases.carbon_dioxide;
global.gases_listed[|1] = gases.oxygen;
global.gases_listed[|2] = gases.nitrogen;

And when I do need to use them and do somthing for each of them, I just use the list for it. Am I missing a function that returns all values in an enum?

 

[Binsk]

Use something other than an enum.

Enums are just convenient macros that don't exist post compile (and thus aren't actually a structure of any kind).

Since enums are just integers and, assuming you leave their values at defaults, you could just loop through an integer list from 0 to the number of enum values.

If you don't leave the values at default then there is no clean way to loop through them all.

 

[Marcus12321]

What I usually do with my enums is let them count from 0 like normal, and the last item in the list is called length.

Then when I want to run through them as a list, I can just do a repeat (enums.length). And it will run the loop (or whatever) the number of times as the number of items in the enum.

 

[FrostyCat]

One common workaround for enums without explicit values is to include a length entry at the end:

enum EXAMPLE {
  VALUE_A,
  VALUE_B,
  VALUE_C
  length
}

Then the following would run through each value in order:

for (var i = 0; i < EXAMPLE.length; i++) {
  //...
}