how do I use an enum value on a switch statement i

Question

I would like to use an enum value for a switch statement. Is it possible to use the enum values enclosed in "{}" as choices for the switch()"? I know that switch() needs an integer value in order to direct the flow of programming to the appropriate case number. If this is the case, do I just make a variable for each constant in the enum statement? I also want the user to be able to pick the choice and pass that choice to the switch() statement.

For example:

cout << "1 - Easy, ";
cout << "2 - Medium, ";
cout << "3 - Hard: ";

enum myChoice { EASY = 1, MEDIUM = 2, HARD = 3 };

cin >> ????

switch(????)
{
case 1/EASY:  // (can I just type case EASY?)
    cout << "You picked easy!";
    break;

case 2/MEDIUM: 
    cout << "You picked medium!";
    break;

case 3/HARD: // ..... (same thing as case 2 except on hard.)

default:
    return 0;
}

Answer 1

The user's input will always be given to you in the form of a string of characters... if you want to convert the user's input from a string to an integer, you'll need to supply the code to do that. If the user types in a number (e.g. "1"), you can pass the string to atoi() to get the integer corresponding to the string. If the user types in an english string (e.g. "EASY") then you'll need to check for that string (e.g. with strcmp()) and assign the appropriate integer value to your variable based on which check matches. Once you have an integer value that was derived from the user's input string, you can pass it into the switch() statement as usual.

Answer 2

• Note: I do know that this doesn't answer this specific question. But it is a question that people come to via a search engine. So i'm posting this here believing it will help those users.

You should keep in mind that if you are accessing class-wide enum from another function even if it is a friend, you need to provide values with a class name:

class PlayingCard
{
private:
  enum Suit { CLUBS, DIAMONDS, HEARTS, SPADES };
  int rank;
  Suit suit;
  friend std::ostream& operator<< (std::ostream& os, const PlayingCard &pc);
};

std::ostream& operator<< (std::ostream& os, const PlayingCard &pc)
{
  // output the rank ...

  switch(pc.suit)
  {
    case PlayingCard::HEARTS:
      os << 'h';
      break;
    case PlayingCard::DIAMONDS:
      os << 'd';
      break;
    case PlayingCard::CLUBS:
      os << 'c';
      break;
    case PlayingCard::SPADES:
      os << 's';
      break;
  }
  return os;
}

Note how it is PlayingCard::HEARTS and not just HEARTS.