Choosing random from enum

[mighty asker]

Hello. How do I make this work?

enum colors {white=0,brown,black,spotted};

 int main()
{
	srand(time(0));
	string test;
	test = (string)(rand() % 4);
}

[Jaybob66]

you have no strings :(

enum colors {white=0,brown,black,spotted,num_colours};
string s_colours[] = {"white","brown","black","spotted"};

 int main()
{
	srand(time(0));
	string test;
	test = s_colours[rand() % num_colours];
}

[mighty asker]

That was my first version. So there's no point to use enum?

[Jaybob66]

there isn't if you don't want to reference it.

you have to remember that enum is just a convenient way of defining lots of const ints.

its the same as trying to say

const int jaybob = 99;

string myName = jaybob;

its not going to work unless you tell the compiler how to convert from numbers to text.

and in your example, even if you did tell the compiler how to do that, how would it cope with this

enum colours {red=0,white,blue};
enum layers {first=0,second,third};

string test = (string)(rand()%3);

what would you expect test to be? a colour or a layer?