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From: jrwsnsr@nmtsun.nmt.edu (Jonathan R. Watts)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
Subject: Re: Another various question about TP 5.0
Message-ID: <3579@nmtsun.nmt.edu>
Date: 1 Dec 89 02:53:41 GMT
References: <303@usna.MIL>
Organization: New Mexico Tech, Socorro NM
Lines: 47

In article <303@usna.MIL>, baldwin@usna.MIL (J.D. Baldwin) writes:
> Is there a good, clean way to convert the value of an enumerated ordinal
> type to a string value?
> 
> That is, what does the function ConverterFunction(somevalue:sometype) : string
> look like in this fragment:
> 
>     type veggies = (carrots, limabeans, beets, toadstools);  . . .
>     var  whatveg : veggies; . . .
> 
>     whatveg := carrots;
>     . . .
>     writeln(ConverterFunction(whatveg));
> 
> so that writeln statement will output the string "carrots"?  This question
> is not exactly mission-critical to me, but an answer would be nice.  If 
> replies are by e-mail, I'll summarize.

Unfortunately, there's no easy way to do this, as the names of the values are
not stored in the output file!  However, in Turbo Pascal, you could do the
following:

   type 
      string10 = string[10];
      veggies = (carrots, limabeans, beets, toadstools);
   const
      veggies_string : array[0..3] of string10 =
         ('carrots', 'limabeans', 'beets', 'toadstools');
   var
      whatveg : veggies;
   function ConverterFunction(ToConvert : veggies) : string10;
   begin
      ConverterFunction := veggies_string[Ord(ToConvert)];
   end;

   begin
      whatveg := carrots;
      writeln(ConverterFunction(whatveg));
   end.

Unfortunately, you can only use typed constants (the const above) in 
Turbo Pascal (as far as I know).  With standard pascal, you would have to
make the array a standard var, and initialize it in the program body.

  - Jonathan Watts

jrwsnsr@jupiter.nmt.edu