Enumerated Types

An enumerated type declares an optional type name and a set of zero or more identifiers that can be used as values of the type. Each enumerator is a constant whose type is the enumeration.

Creating an enumeration requires the use of the keyword enum. The general form of an enumeration type is −

enum enum-name { list of names } var-list; 

Here, the enum-name is the enumeration's type name. The list of names is comma separated.

For example, the following code defines an enumeration of colors called colors and the variable c of type color. Finally, c is assigned the value "blue".

enum color { red, green, blue } c;
c = blue;

By default, the value of the first name is 0, the second name has the value 1, and the third has the value 2, and so on. But you can give a name, a specific value by adding an initializer. For example, in the following enumeration, green will have the value 5.

enum color { red, green = 5, blue };

Here, blue will have a value of 6 because each name will be one greater than the one that precedes it.