Enum-and this does what?

[mmatteson]

I was reading over some code i came across on one of these forums, and was wondering what enum is? or public enum "variable". could someone please explain this to me? thanks

[Slow_Learner]

Do you mean what is the definition of the term "enumeration"? That's a hard-coded list of values. A lot of the time it will be used to put human-language names to things like binary numbers, e.g. the MsgBoxStyle enumeration:
ms-help://MS.VSCC/MS.MSDNVS/vblr7/html/vamscMsgBoxConstants.htm

each of the listings in the enumeration points to a numerical value - so you have the convenience of human-readable names for values at development time, but the efficiency of a number at build time.

[mmatteson]

thanks for the defintion, that shed some light, but i was wondering what you would use that in code for and for what purpose. could you possibly supply an example? thanks man

[Edneeis]

Enums generally supply a fixed list of choices. The icons or button choices are an enum when you use the Msgbox. Here is another example:

Public Class EnumExample
 
  Public Enum LoadByOptions
     ByName
     BySSN
     ByID
  End Enum
 
  Public Sub Load(ByVal LoadBy As LoadByOptions)
    Select Case LoadBy
       Case LoadByOptions.ByName
 
       Case LoadByOptions.BySSN
 
       Case LoadByOptions.ByID
 
    End Select
  End Sub
 
End Class

The use of enums here makes it much easier than using a numbered list (i.e. 1, 2, 3) and easier to read since instead of numbers you have what they represent (ByName, SSN, or ID).

[nemaroller]

I'm glad someone asked this, because today I have just thought about implementing one...

Here's the drill:

Customer payments.... how did they pay? Visa, Check, Cash, Discover, MasterCard, American Express?

Sounds like a great application of the enum class....

Private pType As PayMentType
 
    Public Enum PayMentType
        Visa = 0
        Mastercard = 1
        Discover = 2
        AmericanExpress = 3
        Cash = 4
        Check = 5
    End Enum
 
    Public Property Method(ByVal aPaymntType As PayMentType) As PayMentType
 
        Get
            Return pType
        End Get
        Set(ByVal Value As PayMentType)
            pType = Value
        End Set
 
    End Property

Dim r As New Payment()
        r.Method = Payment.PayMentType.AmericanExpress

Of course I'm still debating whether I should even hardcode payment types in.... if a new type of credit card comes out in 2 years.. I might get some calls...

[nswan]

from my experience you should hard code as little as possible so I wouldn't if i was you! It'll only create more work for you at a later date!

[nemaroller]

yea... but since this is a custom project... and the numskels wouldn't be able to figure out how to update a database, I think I'm going to have to hardcode it...

Hard-coded or not, if these change, I'll have to make a trip back... and adding a new enumeration type and a new button that represents that type would take all of 1 minute.