C++ string to enum

Question

Is there a simple way in C++ to convert a string to an enum (similar to Enum.Parse in C#)? A switch statement would be very long, so I was wondering if there is a simpler way to do this?

EDIT:

Thanks for all of your replies. I realized that there was a much simpler way to do it for my particular case. The strings always contained the charater 'S' followed by some number so i just did

int i = atoi(myStr.c_str() + 1);

and then did a switch on i.

Solution 1

A std::map<std::string, MyEnum> (or unordered_map) could do it easily. Populating the map would be just as tedious as the switch statement though.

Edit: Since C++11, populating is trivial:

static std::unordered_map<std::string,E> const table = { {"a",E::a}, {"b",E::b} };
auto it = table.find(str);
if (it != table.end()) {
  return it->second;
} else { error() }

Solution 2

Use std::map<std::string, Enum> and use boost::map_list_of to easily initialize it.

Example,

enum X
{
   A,
   B,
   C
};

std::map<std::string, X> xmap = boost::map_list_of("A", A)("B", B)("C",C);

Solution 3

saw this example somewhere

#include <map>
#include <string>

enum responseHeaders
{
    CONTENT_ENCODING,
    CONTENT_LENGTH,
    TRANSFER_ENCODING,
};

// String switch paridgam   
struct responseHeaderMap : public std::map<std::string, responseHeaders>
{
    responseHeaderMap()
    {
        this->operator[]("content-encoding") =  CONTENT_ENCODING;
        this->operator[]("content-length") = CONTENT_LENGTH;
        this->operator[]("transfer-encoding") = TRANSFER_ENCODING;
    };
    ~responseHeaderMap(){}
};

Solution 4

I use this "trick" > http://codeproject.com/Articles/42035/Enum-to-String-and-Vice-Versa-in-C

After

enum FORM {
    F_NONE = 0,
    F_BOX,
    F_CUBE,
    F_SPHERE,
};

insert

Begin_Enum_String( FORM )
{
    Enum_String( F_NONE );
    Enum_String( F_BOX );
    Enum_String( F_CUBE );
    Enum_String( F_SPHERE );
}
End_Enum_String;

It works fine, if the values in the enum are not duplicates.

Example in code

enum FORM f = ...
const std::string& str = EnumString< FORM >::From( f );

vice versa

assert( EnumString< FORM >::To( f, str ) );

Solution 5

There is no "built-in way", but there are ways to achieve this by storing the pair value-name in an array

enum myEnum
{
    enumItem0,
    enumItem1,
    enumItem7 = 7,
    enumItem8
};

std::vector<std::pair<myEnum,std::string>>   gMap;

#define ADDITEM(x)  gMap.push_back(std::pair<myEnum,std::string>(x,#x));

.....

ADDITEM(enumItem0);
ADDITEM(enumItem1);
ADDITEM(enumItem7);
ADDITEM(enumItem8);

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