Let's try C++20 | using enum

Proposal P1099R5 by Gašper Ažman and Jonathan Müller adds the possibility to write using enum my_enum; so that the names inside the enumeration my_enum can be used directly, with being preceded by my_enum::.

Let's consider an enumeration like this:

enum class EnumWithALongName {
    FirstValue,
    SecondValue,
    YetAnotherValue
};

Until C++17, you had to write their fully qualified names to use the enumerators. Sometimes, it would make code quite verbose:

void process(EnumWithALongName value) {
    switch(value) {
        case EnumWithALongName:::FirstValue:
            // stuff
        case EnumWithALongName::SecondValue:
            // more stuff
        case EnumWithALongName::YetAnotherValue:
            // OK, I got it, we are dealing with EnumWithALongName...
    }
}

Thanks to C++20, we can now write:

void process(EnumWithALongName value) {
    switch(value) {
        using enum EnumWithALongName; // this is new \o/

        case FirstValue:
            // stuff
        case SecondValue:
            // more stuff
        case YetAnotherValue:
            // code is more readable like this
    }
}

It is also possible to bring up only some particular enumerators from an enumeration:

int main() {
    using EnumWithALongName::FirstValue, EnumWithALongName::SecondValue;
    auto value = FirstValue;
    return value != SecondValue;
}

In my opinion, the last reason to use unscoped enums was the possibility to use them without being preceded by the name of the enumeration. This reason has now disappeared 😀