Casting enum to other enum?

[DreamCore]

Hi,

I have two classes, Board and PuzzleSearch. Both contains a private enum named MOVE_DIRECTIONS with the same values MOVE_UP, MOVE_DOWN, MOVE_RIGHT and MOVE_LEFT. The enum in board is used to move tiles based on player input and the one in PuzzleSearch are used for generating a solution sequence to the puzzle. When the solution has been generated I want to return it from the PuzzleSearch class to the Board class. The solution is stored in a vector like this:

std::vector<MOVE_DIRECTIONS> solution;

Problem is I cannot write this line in the Board class:

std::vector<MOVE_DIRECTIONS> solution = search.GetSolution();

It complains that the PuzzleSearch::MOVE_DIRECTIONS cannot be converted into Board::MOVE_DIRECTIONS. Any way around this?

/Robin

[vlad from moscow]

Maybe to declare this enumeration outside the classes?

[DreamCore]

No I dont want to declare stuff in the global namespace. There must be another way.

[vlad from moscow]

Another way is to copy one vector into another and use type casting for each element of the source vector.

[DreamCore]

Not really sure what you mean there.

[vlad from moscow]

As I understand this statement performs assigning one vector to another and these vectors have different types of elements.

std::vector<MOVE_DIRECTIONS> solution = search.GetSolution();

So you need copy yourself all elements from one vector to another using casting to each element of the source vector.

[JLBorges]

struct puzzle
{
    enum move_direction { LEFT, RIGHT, UP, DOWN } ;
    const std::vector<move_direction>& solution() const { return solution_seq ; }
    // ...
    private:
        std::vector<move_direction> solution_seq ;
        // ...
};

struct board
{
    board( const puzzle& search ) : solution_seq ( search.solution() ) {}
    // ...
    private:
        std::vector<puzzle::move_direction> solution_seq ;
        // ...
};

[DreamCore]

I have the classes in different header files and I don't want to include one inside the other just to get access to the public enum. Any other solutions?

[JLBorges]

// common_types.h
struct common_types { enum move_direction { LEFT, RIGHT, UP, DOWN } ; } ;

// puzzle.h
#include "common_types.h"
struct puzzle : common_types
{
    const std::vector<move_direction>& solution() const { return solution_seq ; }
    // ...
    private:
        std::vector<move_direction> solution_seq ;
        // ...
};

// board.h
#include "common_types.h"
struct board : common_types
{
    board( const puzzle& search ) : solution_seq ( search.solution() ) {}
    // ...
    private:
        std::vector<move_direction> solution_seq ;
        // ...
};

[DreamCore]

Why didn't I think of that? Silly me ;)

Thanks!