Thread: Convert enum member variable to string?

Yeah, no simple way to have it.

But on the sunny side, you can overload operator<< for the enum

Code:

#include <iostream>
#include <cassert>

enum X { a, b };

std::ostream& operator<<(std::ostream& os, X x)
{
    switch (x) {
        case a: return os << "a";
        case b: return os << "b";
    }
    assert(false && "wrong enum value");
}

int main()
{
    X x = a;
    std::cout << a;
}

Side question: doesn't the standard say that any two enum values ORed together are also valid values for the enum variable (e.g when used as bitfields)?