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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!tektronix!orca!tekecs!joemu
From: joemu@tekecs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.lang.c
Subject: ANSI standard and enums
Message-ID: <4125@tekecs.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 20-Oct-84 21:06:04 EDT
Article-I.D.: tekecs.4125
Posted: Sat Oct 20 21:06:04 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 24-Oct-84 07:54:16 EDT
Sender: joemu@tekecs.UUCP
Organization: Tektronix, Wilsonville OR
Lines: 22

I would like to pose a question to the user community.
What position should the ANSI committee take regarding enumerated types?
  a. leave them out of the language
  b. "tighten up" enums so they behave less like regular ints
  c. leave them wishy-washy like they're implemented in many compilers

This is not a joke. The question to even have them in the language is
valid. The only real use for enums that we could see was to provide
symbolic names for constants so that symbolic debuggers could access them.
Other than that, it appears that enums could be replaced with appropriate
#defines.

The "tighten up" position is to make them behave much the same as enums
in pascal. There would not be any bounds checking, it would be too "unClike".

My personal opinion is "if it works, don't fix it". But the question is:
Does the current implementation work for the majority of the users or should
we attempt do do something about it? You may reply to me directly or
if you feel your reply is of general interrest, post it.

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