A constant integral

[Tomás]

When you have a constant integral in a program, like the population of a
town, how do you declare it? A const variable or an enum?

Up until now I've always used variables, e.g.:

unsigned const population_dublin = 8274816;


I'm flipping through pages of Bjarne's book though at the moment, and
enum's seem pretty handy, as in:

enum { population_dublin = 8274816 }


Which style would you advocate?

-Tomás

 

[Victor Bazarov]

When you have a constant integral in a program, like the population of a
town, how do you declare it? A const variable or an enum?

Whatever floats your boat.

Up until now I've always used variables, e.g.:

unsigned const population_dublin = 8274816;

Is it really 'const'? I wonder, nobody is born and nobody dies in Dublin?

I'm flipping through pages of Bjarne's book though at the moment, and
enum's seem pretty handy, as in:

enum { population_dublin = 8274816 }


Which style would you advocate?

The former unless you need to place it in a class (as 'static') and your
compiler is too old to support integral static const initialisation in the
class definition.

V