Get the number of elements in an enum

[Emily]

How can I return the number of elements created by an enum?
I want to get 3 in the following cases.

enum states {idle, move, attack}

 

[FoxyOfJungle]

As far as I know it is not possible, instead you can use a variable or in the enum itself to insert the number of items.

enum player_state
{
    idle,
    move,
    atack,
}

state_count = 2; //number of entries (from 0)

Remembering that the enum entries are just numbers/integers and cannot be changed at runtime.

 

[Emily]

>FoxyOfjungle

Thank you for your advice
I'll do it that way

 

[RefresherTowel]

The way I do it is add num to the end of each enum:

enum player_states {
   JUMP,
   CLIMB,
   IDLE,
   WALK,
   NUM
}

So that way the number of elements is player_states.NUM-1. Looping through all the elements is:

for (var i=0;i<player_states.NUM;i++) {
   // Do something with state i here
}

 

[Emily]

> RefresherTowel
Thank you
I will also try that method
Enum is very convenient and nice

 

[Slyddar]

So that way the number of elements is player_states.NUM-1.

I use a similar system, just adding a TOTAL entry to the end of every enum declaration. And unless I'm mistaken, the number of elements in your example is just player_states.NUM, which is 4.

 

[RefresherTowel]

Yeah that’s correct and my original comment wasn’t. Bit of a brain fart.

 

[Deleted member 45063]

I also use the method @RefresherTowel mentioned, I'd just like to state that for readability you might want to define that last element as something like length rather the uppercase version so you can visually distinguish it from the regular enum constants, or the reverse if your enum constants are lowercase

 

[chamaeleon]

Just want to mention adding a "count" entry at the end only makes sense if you let the enums have 0 through n-1 values and you're not using the ability to assign arbitrary values to the enum entries, like 1,2,4,8,16 (not uncommon for bit flags, etc.) In such a scenario you will need to keep track of if some other way independent of the enum.