Alex Rivera | Logout

Specifying size of enum type in C

Asked 2011-02-02T20:05:20.210
67

Already read through this related question, but was looking for something a little more specific.

  • Is there a way to tell your compiler specifically how wide you want your enum to be?
  • If so, how do you do it? I know how to specify it in C#; is it similarly done in C?
  • Would it even be worth doing? When the enum value is passed to a function, will it be passed as an int-sized value regardless?
c optimization enums word-size
Edit
Report

1 Answer

11

There is also another way if the enum is part of a structure:

enum whatever { a,b,c,d };

struct something {
   char  :0;
   enum whatever field:CHAR_BIT;
   char  :0;
};

The :0; can be omitted if the enum field is surrounded by normal fields. If there's another bitfield before, the :0 will force byte alignement to the next byte for the field following it.

answered 2013-06-08T21:37:29.987

Your Answer