vnum

Create enums with a constant value associated to every variant.

Features

Get the values via the .value() method or via the From / Into Traits
Your attributes (#[...]) and documentation are automatically added to the generated enum
Documentation is generated showing the value of each variant: Image

Examples

value_enum! {
    enum Fruit: &'static str {
        Apple = "red",
        Banana = "yellow",
        Pear = "green"
    }
}

// Get the value with the `.value()` method:
let apple = Fruit::Apple;
println!("Apple: {}", apple.value()); // Apple: red

// Get the value with the From / Into traits:
let pear = Fruit::Pear;
let value: &str = pear.into();
println!("Pear: {}", value); // Pear: green

Note: The type of the values must be specified after the enum name, just like above (&'static str in this case).

Note: If the value type is a reference (&) or contains references, the 'static lifetime must be used,
otherwise the Rust compiler would not know where the value is borrowed from.

value_enum! {
    #[derive(Debug)]
    enum Color: u8 {
        Red = 1,
        Green = 2,
        Yellow = 3
    }
}

let red = Color::Red;
println!("{:?}: {}", red, red.value()); // Red: 1

let yellow = Color::Yellow;
let value: u8 = yellow.into();
println!("Yellow: {}", value); // Yellow: 3

Note: If you want more traits implemented for your enum, you have to do it yourself.
In the example above, the Debug trait is derived.

Note: Only constant expressions are allowed to the right of the equals sign,
which means they must be evaluable at compile time.
Look here for all kinds of constant expressions: https://doc.rust-lang.org/reference/const_eval.html#constant-expressions

Alternatives

Simple constants

Easy, but you can't:

limit the possible values
add additional items (e.g. methods, trait impl's, constants)

Example of using simple constants:

const RED: u8 = 1;
const GREEN: u8 = 2;
const YELLOW: u8 = 3;

fn display_color(color: u8) { }

display_color(RED);
display_color(GREEN);

// But also accepts other `u8` values:
display_color(42);

You could additionally:

Create a type alias to improve readability:

type Color = u8;
// `Color` is now an alias for `u8`
fn display_color(color: Color) { }

display_color(RED);

// Note: Because `Color` is only an alias and not a new type,
//       you can still use any other `u8` value:
display_color(42);

Put the constants in an own module to use them like Color::RED :

mod Color {
    const RED: u8 = 1;
    // ...
}

Enum with disciminators

Enum disciminators can only be integers,
so you wouldn't be able to recreate the &str example from above.
You can cast variants to an integer type via as.

Example of using an enum with disciminators:

enum Color {
    Red = 1,
    Green = 2,
    Yellow = 3
}

fn display_color(color: Color) {
  // Now cast to any integer type via `as`:
  takes_u8(color as u8);
  takes_i32(color as i32);
}

display_color(Color::Yellow);

You could additionally:

Create a method to get the value:

impl Color {
    fn value(&self) -> u8 {
        self as u8
    }
}
// ...
takes_u8(color.value())
// ...

Manually convert from enum variant to value

This is exactly what this library does automatically.\

Example of manually converting from enum variant to value:

enum Color {
    Red,
    Green,
    Yellow
}

impl Color {
    const fn value(&self) -> u8 {
        const RED: u8 = 1;
        const GREEN: u8 = 2;
        const YELLOW: u8 = 3;
        match self {
            Color::Red => RED,
            Color::Green => GREEN,
            Color::Yelllow => YELLOW
        }
    }
}

display_color(Color::Yellow);

fn display_color(color: Color) {
  // Now cast to any integer type via `as`:
  takes_u8(color as u8);
  takes_i32(color as i32);
}

Note: Apart from generating a method like this, this libarary generates documentation and a From implementation.
Look at the beginning of the file for more information.

Planned features

Allow creating multiple value enums in one macro invocation
Option to ensure unique values
Option to disable automatic documentation generation
Make the note about the value type in the generated docs clickable
(currently doesn't work because rustdoc only creates links for types which are/contain no references)
no_std support
Maybe:
- Get variant by value
- Optional "wildcard" variant which can hold all values of the type
- Make the names of duplicate values aliases like in pythons enum module
- Optional Debug implementation which shows the variant name and value, also like in pythons enum module

License

Licensed under either of

Apache License, Version 2.0 (LICENSE-APACHE or http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0)
MIT license (LICENSE-MIT or http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)

at your option.

Contribution

Unless you explicitly state otherwise, any contribution intentionally submitted for inclusion in the work by you, as defined in the Apache-2.0 license, shall be dual licensed as above, without any additional terms or conditions.

vnum 0.1.0