Re: enum in octave?

[Søren Hauberg]

fre, 10 10 2008 kl. 11:49 -0700, skrev Jim H:
> Hi,
> I think the question I want to ask is "does Octave have the concept of enum
> as in C?"
> 
> My application:  I would like to pass a set of arguments to a function in an
> array (p[ ]), but I want to refer to the elements of the array by mnemonic
> names like:
> 
> y[BOB] = p[R]*y[BOB]*(1 - y[BOB]/p[K]);
> 
> in C this could be done with #define R 0  #define K 1, etc. or by an enum
> structure.
> 
> Possible in octave?

I don't think Octave has something similar to enum, but you can easily
code something up. The following function

  function [varargout] = enum (first_index = 1)
    for k = 1:nargout
      varargout {k} = k + first_index - 1;
    endfor
  endfunction

should allow you to do something like

  [ALICE, BOB, CARL] = enum ()

which will produce 

  ALICE =  1
  BOB =  2
  CARL =  3

And, if you want the first index to be different from 1, you can do

  [ALICE, BOB, CARL] = enum (2)

you'll get

  ALICE =  2
  BOB =  3
  CARL =  4

Hope that helps,
Søren
> 
> Jim