How to specialize a generic enum in Swift?

C++ basic question...enum and struct explanation.?

• Im trying to finish up the last chapter of work for my first class in c++ programming. Im at home trying to read this chapter on enum user defined data types and struct data types. There is alot of noise in my home and its just not registering too well of what these data types do, why they exist, and when they would be useful. Can someone out there that is a fluent c++ programmer and understands these data types very well, explain to me these two data types in the most basic laymans terms. Im just backed up trying to finish the semester and my brain is overloaded right now. So someone please help. SOOOOO LAYMANS TERMS, ENUM: what is it and why is it useful, STRUCT: what is it and why is it useful, before my brain explodes...so help save a life. lol thank you very much. p.s. basic simple laymans terms as possible. I do understand basic c++ programming.

• Answer:

  Enums are basically a replacement for a linear list of macro defintitons. You basically set up a list of english words and they correspond to an integer number (in linear order). Structs are basically like a baby class. You can put as many types of variables inside a struct that you want, but (at least they way they were supposed to work) you can't define methods/functions in them. You use enums when you want to make parameter passing very easy for someone that is working on your project. In the curses library, they use enum definitions to pass colors (like COLOR_YELLOW) between functions. You use a struct when you need to define your own variable type that is full of primitive types. Structs are probably mainly used for data structures such as lists, trees, queues, and stacks.