Mapping enum values to strings in C++

Question

Is there a way to, at runtime, map the value of an enum to the name? (I'm building with GCC.)

I know GDB can do it and I'm willing to use something that's unportable and mucks with debug data.

Edit: I'm looking for a solution that doesn't require modifying the original enum declaration nor hand copying all the values out in a mapping function. I already know how to do both of those.

Effectively; I want a function that does whatever GDB does when it formats runtime enum values.

Try to start here stackoverflow.com/questions/207976/… and here stackoverflow.com/questions/201593/… — Igor
– Igor, Commented Dec 10, 2009 at 21:46
Interesting ignoring the stop words and suffixes all but one of the word in the title match that first link and it STILL didn't show up in the auto search.... — BCS
– BCS, Commented Dec 10, 2009 at 21:50
Igor Oks: the referenced questions/answers seem to revolve around either alternate enum deceleration styles or hand generated functions. I already have a solution thaty works via that sort of solution. — BCS
– BCS, Commented Dec 10, 2009 at 21:59
@BCS: Do you want information to write something like that, or something already written (as your comment to Goz' answer suggests)? — David Thornley
– David Thornley, Commented Dec 10, 2009 at 22:10

Thomas Matthews · Accepted Answer · 2009-12-10 22:51:22Z

3

If you have tenacity, you could create a tool that will parse source files for enums, generate the translation functions and add them to the source code. With more energy, you could write plugins for editors such as Eclipse and Emacs that will perform this for you.

Perhaps it could be done in a Perl script?

answered Dec 10, 2009 at 22:51

Thomas Matthews

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1 Comment

Steve Fallows Over a year ago

In a previous job we had a fairly thorough system to define all return codes in enums and a Perl script to pull them out and make a compileable file of strings so they could be printed when error occurred. These days I would probably use Python but Perl got the job done.

Georg Fritzsche · Accepted Answer · 2009-12-11 05:07:30Z

1

If you don't want to invest the time to utilize GCCs symbol information, gcc-xml provides you information about C++ sources in a reusable XML format, including enumeration names.

Simplified example... this source:

enum E {
  e1 = 1,
  e2 = 42
};

becomes:

<GCC_XML>
  <!-- ... -->
  <Enumeration name="E">
    <EnumValue name="e1" init="1"/>
    <EnumValue name="e2" init="42"/>
  </Enumeration>
  <!-- ... -->
</GCC_XML>

answered Dec 11, 2009 at 5:07

Georg Fritzsche

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1 Comment

BCS Over a year ago

That plus some fun with XSLT and I should be able to code-gen the function I want. Yuck.

BCS · Accepted Answer · 2009-12-11 18:00:17Z

0

This may be helpful to you:

The "stabs" debug format

edited Dec 11, 2009 at 18:00

BCS

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answered Dec 10, 2009 at 21:43

Goz

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2 Comments

BCS Over a year ago

That would be useful for the guy who writes the library I'm looking for.

anon Over a year ago

When you provide a link, please give a one-sentence summary (at least) of what it links to.

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