From: James B Crigler <james.b.crigler@...>
Date: 2004-07-07T23:02:43+09:00
Subject: Re: Enumeration (Ala Pascal, C, Ada)

Tim Hunter wrote:
> 
> James B Crigler wrote:
> 
> > I put together the code that follows in an attempt to emulate (in a
> > crude way) the "enumeration" types of Ada, C, Pascal, etc.
> 
> I don't know if this is exactly what you're looking for, but check out
> http://addlib.rubyforge.org/wiki/wiki.pl?EnumClass. This is a class that is
> to C enums what Struct is to C structures.

Thanks, Tim.  I did a copy and paste of the code from the wiki, and it
is very interesting.  I hadn't thought of the runtime definition of Enum
subclasses --- that's a very nice touch.

Unfortunately, my problem is a little different.  Buried in what I originally
wrote is this statement:

> Multiple change doc types with disjoint status sets may be used
> simultaneously.

I misstated the case here:  The status sets may have a few identical
names, e.g., an Edibles could have a set of statuses like
	"CUT", "INSERT", "CHEW", "SWALLOW", "DIGEST"
while a Readables class could have a set of statuses like
	"OPEN", "READ", "CONSIDER", "DIGEST", "MEDITATE"

Your Enum solution can't prevent me from comparing these two.
-- 
Jim Crigler