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cenumsintegerintconstants

Difference between using enum and int variables in C

What is the difference between

enum week{Mon, Tue, Wed, Thur, Fri, Sat, Sun};
enum week day = Wed;

and

enum week{Mon, Tue, Wed, Thur, Fri, Sat, Sun};
int day = Wed;

in C?

I couldn't find what is the benefit of using variables of type enum over using a regular int.

Solution

  • The benefit is that using an enum make your intentions clearer, both to people reading your code and to the compiler. For example, any half-way decent compiler will warn you if you use an enum with incomplete switch cases:

    switch (day) {
    case Mon: printf("Monday\n"); break;
    case Tue: printf("Tuesday\n"); break;
}

    Here GCC (with -Wall) emits:

    warning: enumeration value 'Wed' not handled in switch [-Wswitch]

    7 |     switch (day) {
  |     ^~~~~~

    …

    If the type of day was int, you wouldn’t get this very helpful warning.