Getting total number of enum items

Question

Is it possible to get the total number of items defined by an enum at runtime?

While it's pretty much the same question as this one, that question relates to C#, and as far as I can tell, the method provided there won't work in Objective-C.

Solution

An enum is a plain-old-C type, therefore it provides no dynamic runtime information.

One alternative is to use the last element of an enum to indicate the count:

typedef enum {
    Red,
    Green,
    Blue,
    numColors
} Color;

Comments

[Ralph Sinsuat]

Good for contiguous values, utterly fails for typedef enum { Red=0xff0000, Green=0x00ff00, Blue=0x0000ff, numColors} Color;.

[Josh Buhler]

Like Mark said, this will fail big time for his example, the alternative provided by Darren is perfect for my needs. Thanks.

[Ricardo Sanchez-Saez]

Look here for a better, completely automatic, but potentially dangerous solution: stackoverflow.com/q/24695580/269753