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User Defined Types

To help make programs more readable, the C language allows users to define their own types. Two forms are provided:

enum

This is really just an integer declaration with symbolic names for the values variables of this type can take. Essentially, an enum takes the place of an integer declaration and a set of macros.

For example, instead of using the macros defined in tfdef.h, we can declare an "enumerated type" as:

     enum boolean {FALSE,TRUE};

This defines a type enum boolean (really an integer) that can take on the values FALSE (really 0) or TRUE (really 1). We can then declare a variable of this type:
     enum boolean flag;

and can then write statements like:
     flag = TRUE;

     if(flag == FALSE)

     or better

     if(!flag)

We can use the newly declared type anywhere we must provide a type specifier. For example
     enum boolean verify( float a11, float a12, float c1, ...

The general form to declare an enumerated type is:
     enum [<tag>] {<identifier> [,<identifier>...} [<variable_name>];

The <tag> is an optional name for the type, and the <identifier>'s are the symbolic names for the values we can assign to a variable of this type. They correspond to integer values starting with 0, from left to right. The optional <variable_name> allows us to declare a variable of this type at the same time we declare the type.

When we declare an enum type, we can also specify the starting integer value for the symbolic names:

     enum days {SUN=1,MON,TUE,WED,THU,FRI,SAT};

     enum days today, tomorrow;

     today = MON;
     tomorrow = today + 1;
     if(tomorrow == SAT) play();

typedef

We can also give our own names to any existing type using typedef. The general form is:
     typedef <existing type name> <new type name>;

For example:
     typdef enum boolean boolean;
     typedef float coefficient;
     typedef double solution;

     boolean verify( coefficient a11, coefficient a12, coefficient c1,
                     coefficient a21, coefficient a22, coefficient c2,
                     solution x1, solution x2, double error);


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