enum PortalType
{
  VORTEX,
  BACKHOLE
};

struct SomeStruct
{
  PortalType<unsigned short>  CurrentPortal;
};

Quote:Original post by EDI
Nope, Enums are constant values, pretty much like normal #define's
so they cant be associated with variable data.

Quote:Bjarned Stroustrup wrote in The C++ Programming Language1
When all enumerators are non-negative, the range of the enumeration is [0:2k-1] where 2k is the smallest power of two for which all enumerators are within the range. If there are negative enumerators, the range is [-2k:2k-1]. This defines the smallest bit-field capable of holding the enumerator values using the convential two's complement representation. For example:

  enum e1 { dark, light };              // range 0:1  enum e2 { a=3, b = 9 };               // range 0:15  enum e3 { min=-10, max=1000000 };     // range -1048576:1048575

A value of integral type may be explicitly converted to an enumeration type. The result of such a conversion is undefined unless the value is within the range of the enumeration. For example:

  enum flag {x=1, y=2, z=4, e=8}; // range 0:15    flag f1 = 5;          // type error: 5 is not of type flag  flag f2 = flag(5);    // ok: flag(5) is of type flag and within the range of flag    flag f3 = flag(z|e);  // ok: flag(12) is of type flag and within the range of flag  flag f4 = flag(99);   // undefined: 99 is not within the range of flag

The last assignment shows why there is no implicit conversion from an integer to an enumeration; most integer values do not have a representation in a particular enumeration.
...
The sizeof an enumeration is the sizeof some integral type that can hold it's range and not larger than sizeof(int), unless an enumerator cannot be represented as an int or unsigned int. For example, sizeof(e1) could be 1 or maybe 4 but not 8 on a machine where sizeof(int)==4.
By default, enumerations are converted to ingegers for arithmetic operations. An enumertion is a user-defined type, so users can define their own operations, such as ++ and << for an enumeration.

Quote:Original post by Jiia
So there's no way to simply specify a storage type for a specific instance of an enum variable?

That's really all I needed to know. I really appreciate the extra information.

struct COLOR {   const static short Red=1;   const static short Blue=2;   const static short Green=3;};

Quote:Original post by pragma Fury
For safety, one should always explicitly set the value of enumeration entries anyway. If you let the compiler assign the values, and some time in the future go back and insert a new one, then any code that relied on the original values will break until it is recompiled.