Enum to string in C++11

Question

I realize this has been asked before more than once on SO but I couldn\'t find a question explicitly looking for a current solution to this issue with C++11, so here we go again

Answer 1

Here is a simple example using namespaces and structs. A class is created for each enum item. In this example i chose int as the type for the id.

#include 
using namespace std;

#define ENUMITEM(Id, Name) \
struct Name {\
    static constexpr const int id = Id;\
    static constexpr const char* name = #Name;\
};

namespace Food {
ENUMITEM(1, Banana)
ENUMITEM(2, Apple)
ENUMITEM(3, Orange)
}

int main() {
    cout << Food::Orange::id << ":" << Food::Orange::name << endl;
    return 0;
}

Output:

3:Orange

== Update ==

Using:

#define STARTENUM() constexpr const int enumStart = __LINE__;
#define ENUMITEM(Name) \
struct Name {\
    static constexpr const int id = __LINE__ - enumStart - 1;\
    static constexpr const char* name = #Name;\
};

and using it once before the first usage of ENUMITEM the ids would not be needed anymore.

namespace Food {
STARTENUM()
ENUMITEM(Banana)
ENUMITEM(Apple)
ENUMITEM(Orange)
}

The variable enumStart is only accessible through the namespace - so still multiple enums can be used.