I would like to know how.
I have looked at this topic, and I understand that "The choice of type is implementation-defined.", but I am curious to know how to get 1 instead of 4.
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It's not something you can get, it's how it is. Although it might be possible in C++ 11 (not sure). – Violet Giraffe Jul 01 '12 at 19:11
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@violet Cat Plus Plus's answer worked. I got 1! :-D By the way, may I ask if you are female or male? – wagashi Jul 01 '12 at 19:16
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Why do you need to do this? The size of an enum normally shouldn't matter (unless you're creating very large arrays of enums). – Keith Thompson Jul 01 '12 at 19:30
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@Keith you are right. I was curious if it was possible to get 1 manually. That is all :) – wagashi Jul 01 '12 at 19:37
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C++11 introduced a way to change the underlying type of an enum.
enum foo : char { ... };
enum class foo : char { ... };
Still, you're probably better off with using the default int in most cases.
Cat Plus Plus
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On GCC, you can also use the 'packed' attribute to tell the compiler you care more about space than word alignment / access speed:
enum foo { ... } __attribute__((packed));
There are similar hints for other compilers too.
(This is useful when trying to avoid any C++11 features that aren't yet supported by your compiler or IDE.)
dpercy
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