What is mean by passing the enum array?

Question

can we pass enum as an array or pointer. I heard this type of question somewhere in internet. so I want to check what is that mean. how can we do that? example?

Answer 1

Just like any other array:

#include <stdio.h>

enum colour {
    WHITE,
    RED,
    ORANGE,
    YELLOW,
    GREEN,
    BLUE,
    INDIGO,
    VIOLET,
    BLACK
};

char *colour_names[] = {
    "WHITE",
    "RED",
    "ORANGE",
    "YELLOW",
    "GREEN",
    "BLUE",
    "INDIGO",
    "VIOLET",
    "BLACK"
};

void show_colours(enum colour colours[], int count) {
    int i;

    for (i = 0; i < count; ++i) {
        printf("%s ", colour_names[(int)colours[i]]);
    }
    printf("\n");
}

int main(int argc, char **argv) {
    enum colour estonia[] = {BLUE, BLACK, WHITE};
    show_colours(estonia, 3);
    return 0;
}

Output:

BLUE BLACK WHITE 

Answer 2

You can't. I mean, if you have

typedef enum {
    ALFA,
    BRAVO,
    CHARLIE,
    DELTA
} Alphabet;

there's no way you can pass that information, as is, to a function.

What you CAN do is, to declare an array of integers and assign to that array the values of Alphabet:

Alphabet ab[26] = { ALFA, BRAVO, CHARLIE, ... }

At that point you will be able to pass "ab" as you would any other pointer.