Is There a Simple Way to Convert C++ Enum to String

How to convert enum names to string in c

One way, making the preprocessor do the work. It also ensures your enums and strings are in sync.

#define FOREACH_FRUIT(FRUIT) \
        FRUIT(apple)   \
        FRUIT(orange)  \
        FRUIT(grape)   \
        FRUIT(banana)  \

#define GENERATE_ENUM(ENUM) ENUM,
#define GENERATE_STRING(STRING) #STRING,

enum FRUIT_ENUM {
    FOREACH_FRUIT(GENERATE_ENUM)
};

static const char *FRUIT_STRING[] = {
    FOREACH_FRUIT(GENERATE_STRING)
};

After the preprocessor gets done, you'll have:

enum FRUIT_ENUM {
    apple, orange, grape, banana,
};

static const char *FRUIT_STRING[] = {
    "apple", "orange", "grape", "banana",
};

Then you could do something like:

printf("enum apple as a string: %s\n",FRUIT_STRING[apple]);

If the use case is literally just printing the enum name, add the following macros:

#define str(x) #x
#define xstr(x) str(x)

Then do:

printf("enum apple as a string: %s\n", xstr(apple));

In this case, it may seem like the two-level macro is superfluous, however, due to how stringification works in C, it is necessary in some cases. For example, let's say we want to use a #define with an enum:

#define foo apple

int main() {
    printf("%s\n", str(foo));
    printf("%s\n", xstr(foo));
}

The output would be:

foo
apple

This is because str will stringify the input foo rather than expand it to be apple. By using xstr the macro expansion is done first, then that result is stringified.

See Stringification for more information.

How to convert an enum type variable to a string?

There really is no beautiful way of doing this. Just set up an array of strings indexed by the enum.

If you do a lot of output, you can define an operator<< that takes an enum parameter and does the lookup for you.

Is there a simple way to convert C++ enum to string?

You may want to check out GCCXML.

Running GCCXML on your sample code produces:

<GCC_XML>
  <Namespace id="_1" name="::" members="_3 " mangled="_Z2::"/>
  <Namespace id="_2" name="std" context="_1" members="" mangled="_Z3std"/>
  <Enumeration id="_3" name="MyEnum" context="_1" location="f0:1" file="f0" line="1">
    <EnumValue name="FOO" init="0"/>
    <EnumValue name="BAR" init="80"/>
  </Enumeration>
  <File id="f0" name="my_enum.h"/>
</GCC_XML>

You could use any language you prefer to pull out the Enumeration and EnumValue tags and generate your desired code.

enum to string in modern C++11 / C++14 / C++17 and future C++20

Magic Enum header-only library provides static reflection for enums (to string, from string, iteration) for C++17.

#include <magic_enum.hpp>

enum Color { RED = 2, BLUE = 4, GREEN = 8 };

Color color = Color::RED;
auto color_name = magic_enum::enum_name(color);
// color_name -> "RED"

std::string color_name{"GREEN"};
auto color = magic_enum::enum_cast<Color>(color_name)
if (color.has_value()) {
  // color.value() -> Color::GREEN
};

For more examples check home repository https://github.com/Neargye/magic_enum.

Where is the drawback?

This library uses a compiler-specific hack (based on __PRETTY_FUNCTION__ / __FUNCSIG__), which works on Clang >= 5, MSVC >= 15.3 and GCC >= 9.

Enum value must be in range [MAGIC_ENUM_RANGE_MIN, MAGIC_ENUM_RANGE_MAX].

By default MAGIC_ENUM_RANGE_MIN = -128, MAGIC_ENUM_RANGE_MAX = 128.
If need another range for all enum types by default, redefine the macro MAGIC_ENUM_RANGE_MIN and MAGIC_ENUM_RANGE_MAX.
MAGIC_ENUM_RANGE_MIN must be less or equals than 0 and must be greater than INT16_MIN.
MAGIC_ENUM_RANGE_MAX must be greater than 0 and must be less than INT16_MAX.

If need another range for specific enum type, add specialization enum_range for necessary enum type.

#include <magic_enum.hpp>

enum number { one = 100, two = 200, three = 300 };

namespace magic_enum {
template <>
  struct enum_range<number> {
    static constexpr int min = 100;
    static constexpr int max = 300;
};
}

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

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.

Convert Enum to String

As of C#6 the best way to get the name of an enum is the new nameof operator:

nameof(MyEnum.EnumValue);

// Ouputs
> "EnumValue"

This works at compile time, with the enum being replaced by the string in the compiled result, which in turn means this is the fastest way possible.

Any use of enum names does interfere with code obfuscation, if you consider obfuscation of enum names to be worthwhile or important - that's probably a whole other question.

Enum to string in C++11

The longstanding and unnecessary lack of a generic enum-to-string feature in C++ (and C) is a painful one. C++11 didn't address this, and as far as I know neither will C++14.

Personally I'd solve this problem using code generation. The C preprocessor is one way--you can see some other answers linked in the comments here for that. But really I prefer to just write my own code generation specifically for enums. It can then easily generate to_string (char*), from_string, ostream operator<<, istream operator<<, is_valid, and more methods as needed. This approach can be very flexible and powerful, yet it enforces absolute consistency across many enums in a project, and it incurs no runtime cost.

Do it using Python's excellent "mako" package, or in Lua if you're into lightweight, or the CPP if you're against dependencies, or CMake's own facilities for generating code. Lots of ways, but it all comes down to the same thing: you need to generate the code yourself--C++ won't do this for you (unfortunately).

Enum to String C++

enum Enum{ Banana, Orange, Apple } ;
static const char * EnumStrings[] = { "bananas & monkeys", "Round and orange", "APPLE" };

const char * getTextForEnum( int enumVal )
{
  return EnumStrings[enumVal];
}