C#: Why only integral enums?
- by JamesBrownIsDead
I've been writing C# for seven years now, and I keep wondering, why do enums have to be of an integral type? Wouldn't it be nice to do something like:
enum ErrorMessage
{
NotFound: "Could not find",
BadRequest: "Malformed request"
}
Is this a language design choice, or are there fundamental incompatibilities on a compiler, CLR, or IL level?
Do other languages have enums with string or complex (i.e. object) types? What languages?
(I'm aware of workarounds; my question is, why are they needed?)
EDIT: "workarounds" = attributes or static classes with consts :)