Automatic Enum Stringification in C via Build-Time Code Generation
The article presents a method for automatically generating enum-to-string conversion in C using build-time code generation and compiler debug metadata (DWARF). This approach eliminates manual maintenance of stringification functions and ensures synchronization with enum definitions. The solution incurs no runtime overhead and integrates with existing build tools.
- ▪The technique uses DWARF debug information generated by the compiler to extract enum definitions at build time.
- ▪Enum stringification is achieved without runtime reflection, using generated C source files that are compiled and linked normally.
- ▪The method reduces errors and maintenance effort by automating the creation of lookup tables for enums.
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| Original publisher | Medium |
| Canonical URL | https://medium.com/@yair.lenga/automatic-enum-stringification-in-c-via-build-time-code-generation-659b67133125 |
| Publication time | Wed, 29 Apr 2026 09:53:50 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-04-29T10:06:15.560Z |
| Last seen | 2026-04-29T10:06:15.560Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | jZhJNwx1-WXt · 2 stories |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
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| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Automatic Enum Stringification in C via Build-Time Code GenerationLeveraging compiler debug metadata (DWARF) to generate enum mappings with zero runtime overheadYair Lenga7 min read·Apr 23, 2026--ListenShareThe followup article: Automatic Enum Handling in C — Parsing, Validating and Iterating Covers additional topics related to using enum metadata.If you maintain C code, you’ve probably written enum-to-string conversion functions by hand. They work — until someone adds a new enum value and forgets to update them.When the enum values are assigned sequential values, it is possible to perform fast lookup with arrays, using designated initializers:enum ConnectionState { STATE_NONE, STATE_DISCONNECTED, STATE_CONNECTING, STATE_CONNECTED, STATE_ERROR, STATE_LAST};const char…
Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at Medium.
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