Easy way to use variables of enum types as string in C?

The technique from Making something both a C identifier and a string? can be used here.

As usual with such preprocessor stuff, writing and understanding the preprocessor part can be hard, and includes passing macros to other macros and involves using # and ## operators, but using it is real easy. I find this style very useful for long enums, where maintaining the same list twice can be really troublesome.

Factory code - typed only once, usually hidden in the header:

enumFactory.h:

// expansion macro for enum value definition
#define ENUM_VALUE(name,assign) name assign,

// expansion macro for enum to string conversion
#define ENUM_CASE(name,assign) case name: return #name;

// expansion macro for string to enum conversion
#define ENUM_STRCMP(name,assign) if (!strcmp(str,#name)) return name;

/// declare the access function and define enum values
#define DECLARE_ENUM(EnumType,ENUM_DEF) \
  enum EnumType { \
    ENUM_DEF(ENUM_VALUE) \
  }; \
  const char *GetString(EnumType dummy); \
  EnumType Get##EnumType##Value(const char *string); \

/// define the access function names
#define DEFINE_ENUM(EnumType,ENUM_DEF) \
  const char *GetString(EnumType value) \
  { \
    switch(value) \
    { \
      ENUM_DEF(ENUM_CASE) \
      default: return ""; /* handle input error */ \
    } \
  } \
  EnumType Get##EnumType##Value(const char *str) \
  { \
    ENUM_DEF(ENUM_STRCMP) \
    return (EnumType)0; /* handle input error */ \
  } \

Factory used

someEnum.h:

#include "enumFactory.h"
#define SOME_ENUM(XX) \
    XX(FirstValue,) \
    XX(SecondValue,) \
    XX(SomeOtherValue,=50) \
    XX(OneMoreValue,=100) \

DECLARE_ENUM(SomeEnum,SOME_ENUM)

someEnum.cpp:

#include "someEnum.h"
DEFINE_ENUM(SomeEnum,SOME_ENUM)

The technique can be easily extended so that XX macros accepts more arguments, and you can also have prepared more macros to substitute for XX for different needs, similar to the three I have provided in this sample.

Comparison to X-Macros using #include / #define / #undef

While this is similar to X-Macros others have mentioned, I think this solution is more elegant in that it does not require #undefing anything, which allows you to hide more of the complicated stuff is in the factory the header file - the header file is something you are not touching at all when you need to define a new enum, therefore new enum definition is a lot shorter and cleaner.

// Define your enumeration like this (in say numbers.h);
ENUM_BEGIN( Numbers )
    ENUM(ONE),
    ENUM(TWO),
    ENUM(FOUR)
ENUM_END( Numbers )

// The macros are defined in a more fundamental .h file (say defs.h);
#define ENUM_BEGIN(typ) enum typ {
#define ENUM(nam) nam
#define ENUM_END(typ) };

// Now in one and only one .c file, redefine the ENUM macros and reinclude
//  the numbers.h file to build a string table
#undef ENUM_BEGIN
#undef ENUM
#undef ENUM_END
#define ENUM_BEGIN(typ) const char * typ ## _name_table [] = {
#define ENUM(nam) #nam
#define ENUM_END(typ) };
#undef NUMBERS_H_INCLUDED   // whatever you need to do to enable reinclusion
#include "numbers.h"

// Now you can do exactly what you want to do, with no retyping, and for any
//  number of enumerated types defined with the ENUM macro family
//  Your code follows;
char num_str[10];
int process_numbers_str(Numbers num) {
  switch(num) {
    case ONE:
    case TWO:
    case THREE:
    {
      strcpy(num_str, Numbers_name_table[num]); // eg TWO -> "TWO"
    } break;
    default:
      return 0; //no match
  return 1;
}

// Sweet no ? After being frustrated by this for years, I finally came up
//  with this solution for my most recent project and plan to reuse the idea
//  forever

There's no built-in solution. The easiest way is with an array of char* where the enum's int value indexes to a string containing the descriptive name of that enum. If you have a sparse enum (one that doesn't start at 0 or has gaps in the numbering) where some of the int mappings are high enough to make an array-based mapping impractical then you could use a hash table instead.

There is definitely a way to do this -- use X() macros. These macros use the C preprocessor to construct enums, arrays and code blocks from a list of source data. You only need to add new items to the #define containing the X() macro. The switch statement would expand automatically.

Your example can be written as follows:

 // Source data -- Enum, String
 #define X_NUMBERS \
    X(ONE,   "one") \
    X(TWO,   "two") \
    X(THREE, "three")

 ...

 // Use preprocessor to create the Enum
 typedef enum {
  #define X(Enum, String)       Enum,
   X_NUMBERS
  #undef X
 } Numbers;

 ...

 // Use Preprocessor to expand data into switch statement cases
 switch(num)
 {
 #define X(Enum, String) \
     case Enum:  strcpy(num_str, String); break;
 X_NUMBERS
 #undef X

     default: return 0; break;
 }
 return 1;

There are more efficient ways (i.e. using X Macros to create an string array and enum index), but this is the simplest demo.

I know you have a couple good solid answers, but do you know about the # operator in the C preprocessor?

It lets you do this:

#define MACROSTR(k) #k

typedef enum {
    kZero,
    kOne,
    kTwo,
    kThree
} kConst;

static char *kConstStr[] = {
    MACROSTR(kZero),
    MACROSTR(kOne),
    MACROSTR(kTwo),
    MACROSTR(kThree)
};

static void kConstPrinter(kConst k)
{
    printf("%s", kConstStr[k]);
}