How can I avoid repeating myself when creating a C++ enum and a dependent data structure? [duplicate]

Answer 1

Something that you might or might not want to do, first define what is to be defined, in this case enums and char arrays:

#define DEFENUM(v) v,
#define DEFENUM_last(v) v
#define DEFINE_ENUM(n, LIST) enum n { LIST(DEFENUM) }

#define DEFARR(v) #v,
#define DEFARR_last(v) #v
#define DEFINE_ARRAY(n, LIST) const char *n[] = { LIST(DEFARR) }

Then make your list with this format:

#define LETTERS(GEN) \
        GEN(aaa) \
        GEN(bbb) \
        GEN(ccc) \
        GEN(ffffd) \
        GEN##_last(eee)

Or this one:

#define LETTERS(GEN) \
        GEN(aaa) GEN(bbb) GEN(ccc) GEN(ffffd) GEN##_last(eee)

Finally create what you want to create:

DEFINE_ENUM(LettersEnum, LETTERS);
DEFINE_ARRAY(letters_array, LETTERS);

And this will be converted to:

enum LettersEnum { aaa, bbb, ccc, ffffd, eee };
const char *letters_array[] = { "aaa", "bbb", "ccc", "ffffd", "eee" };