Enumeration Scope

Question

If I have enums like:

enum EnumA
{
  stuffA = 0
};
enum enumAA
{
  stuffA = 1
};

What happens here when you refer to stuffA? I thought you would refer to them like EnumA.stuffA and EnumB.stuffA as in Java, but that doesn't seem to be the case in C.

Answer 1

enums don't introduce new scope.

In your example, the second enum wouldn't compile due to the stuffA name clash.

To avoid name clashes, it is a common practice to give the elements of an enum a common prefix. Different prefixes would be used for different enums:

enum EnumA
{
  EA_stuffA = 0
};
enum EnumAA
{
  EAA_stuffA = 1
};