How do you convert values to enumeration constants in c? - c

Question

Earlier I was fixing a lexer for my parser; now I have to create a validater for it. My idea was to convert the enumeration constants to strings by using the following preprocessor macro: #define MACRO_STRINGIFY(x) #x.
Then I made a function to compare various token values lactually, I made three, but they are all the same with a few minor changes):
unsigned int compare_keyword( enum script_keywords keyword, char *token ) {
char *temporary = MACRO_STRINGIFY( keyword );
unsigned int i = 0;
for (; i < (strlen( "KEYWORD_" ) + 1); i++) {
++temporary;
}
// 0 on match, 1 on no match
return strcmp( temporary, token ) ? 1 : 0;
}
Now, this function works absolutely fine... when keyword is the enumeration constant:
void test() {
printf( "\nIF is " );
// Finish the sentence based on the return value
compare_keyword( KEYWORD_IF, "IF" ) ? printf( "not a keyword.\n" ) : printf( "a keyword.\n" );
}
test(); //--> Outputs 'IF is a keyword' like expected.
On the other hand, the function does not work as intended if I pass a value like 1 (the value which the symbolic enumeration constant KEYWORD_IF resolves to.):
// Same as last time with one edit:
void test() {
/* See above code with following change on line 4 */
compare_keyword( 1, "IF" ) /* etc... */
/* Rest of code from previous test */
}
test(); //--> Outputs 'IF is not a keyword' even if KEYWORD_IF resolves to the value 1.
The point I'm getting across here is that the preproccessor is very literal, and I would much prefer using a for loop to loop through the constants efficiently without bloating the code size (which is what would happen if I end up using enumeration constants). Therefore, the question is how can I convert plain integer values to their symbolic names without using switch…case… or if…else…?
Edit: Enumeration Details:
enum script_keywords {
KEYWORD_IF = 1,
KEYWORD_THEN = 2,
KEYWORD_ELSEIF = 3,
KEYWORD_ELSE = 4,
KEYWORD_ENDIF = 5,
KEYWORD_FOR = 6,
KEYWORD_TO = 7,
KEYWORD_STEP = 8,
KEYWORD_EXITFOR = 9,
KEYWORD_NEXT = 10,
KEYWORD_LOOP = 11,
KEYWORD_WHILE = 12,
KEYWORD_EXITLOOP = 13,
KEYWORD_ENDLOOP = 14,
KEYWORD_DO = 15,
KEYWORD_EXITDO = 16,
KEYWORD_UNTIL = 17,
KEYWORD_ON = 18,
KEYWORD_GOTO = 19,
KEYWORD_CALL = 20,
KEYWORD_LET = 21,
KEYWORD_DIM = 22,
KEYWORD_AS = 23
};

Answer 1

The Macro "MACRO_STRINGIFY" is evaluated at compile time by the preprocessor. It will return the actual name of the argument, so
MACRO_STRINGIFY(keyword) -> "keyword"
MACRO_STRINGIFY(KEYWORD_IF) -> "KEYWORD_IF"
MACRO_STRINGIFY(1) -> "1"
Apparently this will not lead to any solution.
Instead one could use a compile-time generated key-value mapping to implement such functionality:
struct map
{
int key;
const char* value;
};
struct map mappings[] =
{
{ KEYWORD_IF, "IF" },
{ KEYWORD_ELSE, "ELSE" }
};
and then simply iterate those mapping entries at runtime to find out what you need:
static int is_keyword(const char* str)
{
int i;
const int count = sizeof(mappings) / sizeof(mappings[0]);
for(i = 0; i < count; i++)
{
struct map* m = &mappings[i];
if(strcmp(str, m->value) == 0)
{
return 1;
}
}
return 0;
}
void test()
{
const char* str = "IF";
const char* what;
if(is_keyword(str))
{
what = "a keyword";
}
else
{
what = "not a keyword";
}
printf("%s is %s.\n", str, what);
}
This is about as minimal as it may get. The executable binary does not normally include names of enumeration values as known from e.g. Java.
To extend this even further, you could do some preprocessor voodoo to generate the mapping array (semi-) automatically. But as I am not a big friend of preprocessor voodoo I will skip that ;)