What is a typedef enum in Objective-C?
Apple recommends defining enums like this since Xcode 4.4:
typedef enum ShapeType : NSUInteger {
kCircle,
kRectangle,
kOblateSpheroid
} ShapeType;
They also provide a handy macro NS_ENUM
:
typedef NS_ENUM(NSUInteger, ShapeType) {
kCircle,
kRectangle,
kOblateSpheroid
};
These definitions provide stronger type checking and better code completion. I could not find official documentation of NS_ENUM
, but you can watch the "Modern Objective-C" video from WWDC 2012 session here.
UPDATE
Link to official documentation here.
Three things are being declared here: an anonymous enumerated type is declared, ShapeType
is being declared a typedef for that anonymous enumeration, and the three names kCircle
, kRectangle
, and kOblateSpheroid
are being declared as integral constants.
Let's break that down. In the simplest case, an enumeration can be declared as
enum tagname { ... };
This declares an enumeration with the tag tagname
. In C and Objective-C (but not C++), any references to this must be preceded with the enum
keyword. For example:
enum tagname x; // declare x of type 'enum tagname'
tagname x; // ERROR in C/Objective-C, OK in C++
In order to avoid having to use the enum
keyword everywhere, a typedef can be created:
enum tagname { ... };
typedef enum tagname tagname; // declare 'tagname' as a typedef for 'enum tagname'
This can be simplified into one line:
typedef enum tagname { ... } tagname; // declare both 'enum tagname' and 'tagname'
And finally, if we don't need to be able to use enum tagname
with the enum
keyword, we can make the enum
anonymous and only declare it with the typedef name:
typedef enum { ... } tagname;
Now, in this case, we're declaring ShapeType
to be a typedef'ed name of an anonymous enumeration. ShapeType
is really just an integral type, and should only be used to declare variables which hold one of the values listed in the declaration (that is, one of kCircle
, kRectangle
, and kOblateSpheroid
). You can assign a ShapeType
variable another value by casting, though, so you have to be careful when reading enum values.
Finally, kCircle
, kRectangle
, and kOblateSpheroid
are declared as integral constants in the global namespace. Since no specific values were specified, they get assigned to consecutive integers starting with 0, so kCircle
is 0, kRectangle
is 1, and kOblateSpheroid
is 2.