A macro and a set of functions introducing reflection for enumerations in Objective-C.

Features:

• get a string value for an enumeration's member (which is a common problem)
• get all values used in an enumeration (also a prevalent issue)
• get a minimum value in an enumeration
• get a maximum value in an enumeration

Usage

Once you have ReflectableEnum added to your project, you just need to replace existing enum definitions, like:

typedef NS_ENUM(NSUInteger, AccountType) {
  AccountTypeStandard,
  AccountTypeAdmin
};

with:

REFLECTABLE_ENUM(NSInteger, AccountType,
  AccountTypeStandard,
  AccountTypeAdmin
);

Now you can get a string representing an enumerator and all/minimum/maximum values of an enumeration the enumerator belongs to with:

AccountType accountType = AccountTypeStandard;
NSString *typeString = REFStringForMember(accountType);          // @"AccountTypeStandard"
NSArray *allValues = REFAllValuesForEnumWithMember(accountType); // @[@0, @1]
NSInteger mininimum = REFMinForEnumWithMember(accountType);      // 0
NSInteger maximum = REFMaxForEnumWithMember(accountType);        // 1

In case you pass the enumerator directly to one of these functions, you have to cast it to AccountType, because the compiler doesn't know its type (it's treated as NSInteger in this case):

NSString *typeString = REFStringForMember((AccountType)AccountTypeStandard);
NSArray *allValues = REFAllValuesForEnumWithMember((AccountType)AccountTypeStandard);
NSInteger mininimum = REFMinForEnumWithMember((AccountType)AccountTypeStandard);
NSInteger maximum = REFMaxForEnumWithMember((AccountType)AccountTypeStandard);

The need to cast is a hassle, so ReflectableEnum will create enum-specific functions for you too:

NSString *typeString = REFStringForMemberInAccountType(AccountTypeStandard);
NSArray *allValues = REFAllValuesInAccountType();
NSInteger mininimum = REFMinInAccountType();
NSInteger maximum = REFMaxInAccountType();

As you can see names of these functions depend on the name of the enumeration and follow these patterns: REFStringForMemberIn\(enumName), REFAllValuesIn\(enumName), REFMinIn\(enumName) and REFMaxIn\(enumName)

Drawbacks

• REFStringForMember and REFStringForMemberIn\(enumName) don't work with enumerations containing duplicated values, e.g. with self-referencing members AccountTypeModerator = AccountTypeAdmin
• can't be used for enumerations already defined in frameworks and libraries

Requirements

• iOS 7 and above
• OS X 10.9 and above

Installation

And then import with: #import <ReflectableEnum/ReflectableEnum.h>

Author

Arkadiusz Holko:

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• @arekholko on Twitter