Overview

IOTA provides an automated way to create an enum in Golang. Let’s see an example.

Example

package main

import "fmt"

type Size uint8

const (
	small Size = iota
	medium
	large
	extraLarge
)

func main() {
	fmt.Println(small)
	fmt.Println(medium)
	fmt.Println(large)
	fmt.Println(extraLarge)
}

Output

0
1
2
3

In above program we created a new type

type Size uint8

Then we declared some const of  type Size. The first constant small is set to iota so it will be set to zero

small Size = iota

That’s why

fmt.Println(small)      >> outputs 0  
fmt.Println(medium)     >> outputs 1
fmt.Println(large)      >> outputs 2
fmt.Println(extraLarge) >> outputs 3

Without IOTA we had to explicitly set the values of each of the enum value

package main

import "fmt"

type Size uint8

const (
	small      Size = 0
	medium     Size = 1
	large      Size = 2
	extraLarge Size = 3
)

func main() {
	fmt.Println(small)
	fmt.Println(medium)
	fmt.Println(large)
	fmt.Println(extraLarge)
}

Output

0
1
2
3

We can also define a method toString on Size type to print the exact value of enum . See below program

package main
import "fmt"
type Size int
const (
    small = Size(iota)
    medium
    large
    extraLarge
)
func main() {
    var m Size = 1
    m.toString()
}
func (s Size) toString() {
    switch s {
    case small:
        fmt.Println("Small")
    case medium:
        fmt.Println("Medium")
    case large:
        fmt.Println("Large")
    case extraLarge:
        fmt.Println("Extra Large")
    default:
        fmt.Println("Invalid Size entry")
    }
}

Output

medium

We have defined a toString method for the Size type. It can be used to the print the string value of the constant of Size type.